Till I Am Myself Again
by JeannieMac
Summary: FINAL CHAPTER posted! Goren and Eames deal with the ongoing aftermath of Blind Spot and Siren Call. SPOILERS for those episodes abound. Chapter 6 rated M for grownups doing grownup things.
1. Prologue

**TILL I AM MYSELF AGAIN**

**Warning: SPOILERS for "Blind Spot" and "Siren Call" (episodes 1 and 3 of Season 6). BA in an established relationship.**

_DISCLAIMER:__ all together now…All publicly recognizable characters and places are the property of Universal Studios, NBC and Dick Wolf et al. This piece of fan fiction was created for entertainment, not for money. No infringement on copyrights or trademarks was intended._

* * *

**PROLOGUE**

_I want to go_

_I know I can't stay_

_But I don't wanna run_

_Feeling this way_

_Till I am myself_

_Till I am myself_

_Till I am myself again_

_**--Blue Rodeo, "Till I Am Myself"**_

"You all right?" Alex asks, glancing sideways at her partner as they drive away from the ruins of Ray Wiszneski's life and family. Bobby just looks at her, and then away, hopelessly.

_God damn it, why did this case have to come along now?_ she thinks with a surge of the black, helpless rage that has lurked constantly beneath the surface since she became a pawn in Jo Gage's sick plan. Her Department-ordered therapist says the anger is normal and it'll pass. Alex wonders if it's a sign of progress that this time, she's mad as hell mostly on her partner's behalf, not her own. _Why couldn't we have had a run of nice boring art thefts or corporate fraud cases? Something that wouldn't rip his heart out – again._

At first, facing Ray's gun, all she'd felt was a sort of numb disbelief. _Come on. This can't be happening again_ _so soon. My first case back on the street, for God's sake._ She'd heard the fear in Bobby's voice – _put the gun on me, let my partner go_ – and she'd known she had to get out of there or he wouldn't be able to function. It was too soon_…_too soon after he'd faced the possibility of finding her mutilated body in the trunk of a car.

Then, standing outside the door, hearing Ray say he wanted to kill her partner and then himself (_Here, call your mother. Say goodbye.)_…there it was again, all too familiar, the feeling she's been reliving in her nightmares for the past several weeks: cold, sickening fear and – worse – complete fucking _helplessness_…both so overwhelming as to be almost paralyzing. For the first time since she was a rookie, she'd thought _I'm not up to this._

_I shouldn't be on the job – not right now – and neither should he._

She can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she has heard that ragged note in Bobby's voice, and each time it has frightened her almost as much as whatever tight spot they've happened to be in. But this time was the worst; this time he was on one side of the door and she was on the other. And all she could do was lean against the wall, wait for his signal, and bargain silently with herself and whoever else might be listening: _if we get out of this one, we'll both take a vacation, a real one. Please…just – please, let him be safe._

As it turned out, he had emerged unscathed – physically, that is. Emotionally, on the other hand…_damn this case, _she thinks again, clenching her hands on the steering wheel until her knuckles whiten and her still-healing wrists burn in protest. She knows he's probably blaming himself for Wiszneski's death – for not reading the man right, for not warning the beat cops about their fellow officer's first-hand knowledge of how a man in handcuffs could still get his hands on a gun.

Hell, if _she's _still trembling inwardly at the memory of Wiszneski pulling the trigger not ten feet away from them, still seeing his wife's agonized grief and his daughter's frozen stare…she's certain that the inside of her partner's head is a nightmare place to be, right now.

_We'll file the report, and then I'll talk to Ross_, she promises herself. _To hell with protocol. We are damn well taking a break._

* * *

TBC in Chapter 1…Talking To Ross 


	2. Chapter 1

**TILL I AM MYSELF AGAIN (1/?)**

**Chapter One**

_Please see Prologue for disclaimers._

"Excuse me, Captain – do you have a minute?"

"Sure, Eames, come on in."

Ross waves her into the office that she still has trouble thinking of as his, not Deakins'. She takes a deep breath and sits down in the chair opposite his desk, wishing it could be Deakins she's about to have this conversation with. So far she's finding Ross okay to work with – but it's clear that he doesn't know what to make of Bobby…of either of them, really. Doesn't know how far he can trust them. _Damn it, he should trust our solve rate and let us do our job,_ she thinks irritably, not for the first time, and then pushes the annoyance away. _That's not what you're here for._

"What can I do for you?" Ross asks. She sits up straight and says bluntly,

"I need a favour."

The Captain's eyebrows go up. "Yes?"

"I'm – going to take the rest of that leave you recommended, after all," she says. "I'd like two weeks, starting next Monday."

"Okay," says Ross slowly. "I don't see how that's a favour – you had it coming to you after the Gage case…"

_Here we go,_ she thinks, mentally crossing her fingers.

"The favour," she says steadily, "is that I'm hoping you'll give Goren the time off as well."

"What, so the two of you can run off to Tahiti together?" Ross jokes.

_Well, not Tahiti, but…_

She rolls her eyes for the Captain's benefit. "Yeah, right."

It's a delicate endeavour, projecting just the right dry, _ha-ha-ha, aren't we being hilarious _attitude, but she's had years of practice. She learned early on in her career that if she got snippy whenever people insinuated that she and her (always male) partner had something going on, they would only believe it more firmly. Better to make a joke out of it, or act as though the idea was so unlikely that it wasn't even on her radar. That has always been Bobby's strategy – a blank look and a vague _what? _that never fails to deflate the gossip-mongers. He's so convincing that before they were a couple, she might have found it a little unflattering, if she hadn't been so grateful for his professionalism. Now, she just finds it privately hilarious.

"He hasn't requested any leave," says the Captain.

"He won't. You'll have to…suggest it to him. Recommend it… strongly."

"Is that so?" Ross says coolly. "Why?"

"He needs a break. We both do. The past couple of months have been – difficult."

Ross snorts. "No kidding." He looks at her, assessing. "Are you telling me you think your partner is unfit for duty, Detective?"

_Shit._

"No!" _Calm, Alex._ "No. Not at all."

_I just think something's broken, inside him…everything's hitting him so hard…we're both walking wounded…but if we could just get away for a little while – just have some time to regain our balance…_

"He's fine. We're both fine," she repeats, even though she knows it's a lie and she's pretty sure Ross knows it too.

"Look, Captain, if you check Goren's file, you'll see he's taken extra vacation days maybe three times in six years…and I haven't taken many either, since I came back from maternity leave. We have it coming, sir."

Ross lifts a hand. "I'm not disputing that, Eames. I'm just trying to figure out why you're in here requesting vacation time on your partner's behalf."

She takes a breath, starts to respond, but he cuts her off with a raised hand.

"From what I've seen, Goren seems to be handling himself as well as can be expected, given that you two have caught a couple of really bad cases in a short period of time. But here you are, telling me he needs a break, so I need to know – what are you seeing that I'm not, and should I be concerned?"

_He has a point, damn it._

But she can't say to her boss _I know him, almost better than I know myself, and he is not in good shape_. It feels like a betrayal of her partner, and anyway, Ross will ask why she thinks so. And she definitely can't answer with the truth: _because he hasn't slept more than a few hours a night in weeks. Because he won't talk to me about Jo and Declan Gage, or about his mother - who's dying, by the way. Because lately, he only ever touches me to comfort me, and when I try to return the favour he pulls away. Because I can feel him withdrawing from everything but the job, and it scares me._

"No cause for concern, sir, I promise," she says stubbornly. "I just…think we've had a bad run, and we'd both be better for some time off. But I know that he won't book off – not unless you make him."

She lets out a breath. "And, the thing is…he definitely won't leave if I'm still at work. He's very…protective of me, right now."

That gets an unreadable look. She lifts her chin and gazes neutrally back, trying to act as though her partner's protectiveness is completely normal and platonic.

"Mmm," says Ross. "I bet you aren't too keen on that."

"It drives me nuts," she admits. That makes him chuckle and, she rationalizes, it's at least half true.

"But I understand it, and it'll pass."

_Never mind that I'm feeling pretty protective of him, these days…as though every hit that he takes, I bleed…_ She welcomes that, though – welcomes the raw emotion, the painful tug of her connection to her partner. Since what her psychologist likes to refer to as "the incident", she has found herself retreating into a detached sort of numbness, as though she's seeing the world through a thick wall of glass. Dr. Nahdi says, again, it's a normal response to trauma, but it frightens her. It's the single thing that keeps her going to the therapy sessions – the thought that if she doesn't work at it, she could end up alone on one side of that unbreakable glass barrier for good, with everyone and everything she loves out of reach on the other side.

"Maybe you need a break from each other," Ross suggests. "I could temporarily re-assign one of you - "

"No!" she says again. _Oops, too forceful. _She forces herself to speak calmly.

"With all due respect, sir, that's not the issue. We need a break from the work. Re-assigning one of us won't solve that."

"And so, what – I'm supposed to shift your whole case load onto the rest of the squad while you take this break?"

_Logan and Wheeler would jump at the opportunity to take on some of our cases, get a few high-profile solves to their credit,_ she thinks, but doesn't say.

"I know it will leave you short-handed if we're both off at the same time. We could take turns. But…"

"…You don't think Goren'll go for that." Ross finishes. "Mmm. I have noticed that he doesn't seem to function too well when you're not around..."

_Excuse me, sir, but – bullshit. You've seen him having to function without me because I've been recovering from being abducted and almost murdered by the daughter of his greatest mentor. It's not a representative example._

"He's more than capable," she says firmly, swallowing her irritation. "But – we're better as a team."

She stops there, fighting the urge to keep talking, further reinforce her argument. _Leave it there. Sounding desperate won't help matters._

The captain contemplates her for a long moment.

"All right," he says at length. "I'll take your word on Goren, this time. Hell, I've already had a kidnapping and a hostage situation happen on my watch – I don't need the two of you burning out on me. Take the time. I'll make sure Goren takes it too. Get all your paperwork caught up; brief Logan and Wheeler on your open cases by end of Friday…and then I don't want to see hide nor hair of either of you until the middle of September. Are we clear?"

"Yes sir. Thank you."

_Whew._ Back at her desk, she lets out a long breath. _That's the Captain down, now to deal with Bobby…_

* * *

TBC in Chapter 2…Talking to Goren 


	3. Chapter 2

**TILL I AM MYSELF AGAIN (2/?)**

**Chapter 2**

_Please see Prologue for disclaimers._

* * *

_Coward_.

Alex sighs, sneaking another look in the direction of the Captain's office. She'd meant to talk to Bobby before Ross called him in, really she had. But he'd come back from an interview grouchy and distant, and she hadn't been able to find the energy to face the objections she knew he would raise. Not to put too fine a point on it, she'd chickened out.

_Maybe he won't put up a fight. Maybe he'll understand what I'm trying to do._

She sighs again. _Yeah, right. _

When her partner comes out of Ross' office, she stares down at the toxicology report she's reviewing as though it's suddenly the most fascinating thing she's ever seen. She can feel his eyes on her, feel the nervous energy flowing off of him. _Anger, or…?_

"Eames. Can I talk to you – outside?" _Definitely anger. Crap._

"Sure," she says neutrally, following him to the elevators. He jabs at the down button and turns to her almost before the doors have closed behind them.

"You told Ross I needed a break." Accusing.

"I told him we both did. I asked for two weeks off, and said he should give you the time off too."

"I haven't asked for time off," he snaps.

"No kidding. When have you ever? But come on, Bobby, don't you think you need it? You've – _we've_ been through the wringer, lately."

"What's that supposed to mean? That I can't handle the stress, that I'm going off the deep end?"

"I didn't say that," she says, starting to get irritated. He cuts her off.

"Ross already thinks I'm on the edge of a breakdown – I don't need my partner going behind my back, asking him to take me off the job. Jesus, Eames, what were you thinking?"

_Well, screw you too, Robert Goren._ She pushes past him, out of the elevator and into the lobby, heading for the main doors. Outside, she rounds on him, struggling to control her temper.

"I was thinking," she says, voice clipped with anger, "about you. About _us_. That maybe we could take some time – together. Or not, I don't know. Maybe we do need a break from each other."

That was a low blow, and she knows it. She sees it hit home and feels a stab of guilt for hurting him when she's well aware that his anger isn't really directed at her. _But_ g_od, why does he have to be so – impossible?! _Guilt or no, she can't quite contain her exasperation.

"I'm _tired_, Bobby, okay? If I can admit that, admit that I still need some time to recover from what we've been through over the past little while…you damn well should be able to do the same!"

"That's not – I don't –

He stutters angrily for a second, and then makes a frustrated sound, turning away, scraping his fingers through his hair.

"Whatever," he says, facing her again abruptly, lifting his hands in that passive-aggressive _if you say so_ gesture that always gets on her last nerve because it so clearly means _you're wrong_.

"Just – fine, Eames. You'd better get back upstairs. I – need some air." And he's off, striding jerkily down the street away from her.

_Great. Just great,_ she thinks, barely restraining herself from stamping her foot in sheer frustration. Instead she takes a deep breath, the way Dr. Nahdi has taught her, trying to visualize the irritation leaving her body along with the air she pushes out of her lungs. It works…_almost too well,_ she thinks, as a wave of exhaustion rolls in to replace it. She pinches the bridge over her nose, passes a hand over her face and heads slowly back inside.

Upstairs, she tries unsuccessfully to focus on the blasted toxicology report. When her cell phone buzzes, caller ID flashing "Goren", she answers on the second ring.

"I'm sorry," he says without preamble. He sounds subdued, tired, and her heart aches for him.

"It's okay," she says.

"I guess I…pretty much proved your point. I'm not handling – things – very well."

"Mmm." She doesn't disagree. "But I should have talked to you before I asked Ross about the time off." _Even though I knew what you'd say, and lo and behold – I was right._

"Yeah." There's a small silence. So much she wants to say to him…all of it impossible to talk about in the middle of the crowded squad room.

"So, are you coming back up?" she finally asks. "There's a big pile of lovely LUDs here for you to look at…"

He snorts. "Well, I guess I'd better get caught up, if I'm going to be taking two weeks off starting Monday."

Relief washes through her.

"I'm glad," she says softly. "That you're not dismissing the idea, I mean."

"Yeah. I – can we talk about it more…later? Especially…the part about us maybe taking some time together?"

She smiles into the phone.

"Definitely."

* * *

But later, over dinner, he's silent and distracted, and she can't find the courage to bring it up.

_So, partner, want to go away with me?_

They've never been away together – not for anything non-work-related.

_And what a great time this is to chart new territory in our relationship. God, he was right – what was I thinking?_

_This is ridiculous. It's just a damn vacation. It is not supposed to be this complicated_.

But just as she's nerving herself to say something, Bobby speaks up instead.

"Ross apologized to me for pushing the make-believe indictment against Wiszneski."

"Really?" she asks, guiltily relieved at the conversational reprieve.

"Well – he didn't actually say he was sorry," Bobby amends. "But he did say that what happened was at least partly on him – and that he'd make sure the record was clear about that."

_Score one for the new Captain,_ she thinks._ He's willing to take some of the heat._

"Good," she says out loud. "I hope that helps to convince you that the responsibility's not all yours."

"I wish you wouldn't keep saying that," says her partner sharply. "I know there probably wasn't much else I could have done…"

"_Definitely_ wasn't," she corrects him stubbornly.

"But I still feel like I should have seen it…I can't help thinking – God, that little girl, knowing – _seeing_ – what her dad did. I should have prevented that. And now he's gone, and her mother will be gone soon too."

_I should have seen it. _That waswhat he'd said about Declan and Jo Gage, too.

_But he didn't see it that time either…and I don't blame him, I don't._

"It's awful and tragic, but there's nothing more you can do," she says bluntly. "You have to let it go."

It comes out sounding like an order – _probably because you're trying to convince yourself as much as him,_ she thinks, cringing inwardly, seeing Bobby's hackles go up and knowing it was - not the wrong thing to say, maybe, but definitely the wrong way to say it.

"What," he snaps, "like you're supposed to be letting go of what Jo Gage did to you? And how's _that_ going for you?"

She flinches, sits back jerkily. _Okay, I was tactless, but that was a fucking low blow._

"Screw you, Goren."

She folds her arms tight around herself and clenches her fists against the urge to bring them down hard on the table – or on him. _Bastard. How dare he? He knows exactly how hard I've been working to get back to normal._

She's been going to the hated therapy, even though the sessions regularly reduce her to a shaking, tear-stained mess. _At least I'm consistent – it doesn't seem to matter whether it's physical therapy or the talking kind_, she thinks darkly. She gave herself two weeks after her ordeal, and then forced herself to spend the night at home alone. Peaceful, uninterrupted sleep is still a distant memory, though. She tells herself the nightmares will eventually stop, but she's not sure she believes it.

Physically, she's mostly healed, other than fading bruises and scratches…but she still has trouble with tops that go on over her head, and she can't reach for anything on a high shelf without starting to hyperventilate – not from the pain, anymore, but from the uncontrollable flash of memory that comes with the action of raising her arms above her head. Even washing her hair takes concentration or it leaves her shaking and struggling for breath.

"At least I'm _trying,_" she grits out.

"Oh come on, I didn't mean that!" Bobby sounds about equal parts angry, frustrated and guilty.

"Oh – what did you mean, then?"

"I didn't mean you weren't – just that it's hard – damn it, nothing's coming out right," he protests. I can't – I can't think straight."

She contemplates him, forcing her anger back.

"And you still think you don't need a vacation?" she finally says.

_Well, that sure wasn't how I wanted to bring up the subject, but at least it's out there now._

"No," he says dully after a long pause. "No, I do, you're right. But...honestly, right now, I'm afraid of what'll happen if I don't have work to focus on. I need – _something_. An anchor…I don't know."

She's silent, taken aback by the admission of vulnerability. If he's letting her see a chink in his mental armour, his most preciously-guarded weapon and protection both…that's a better indicator than any of how exhausted and defeated he must be. And oh, she knows that feeling of needing something to hang onto, a distraction to drive away the demons – she's become intimately acquainted with it over the past little while.

"So…focus on something else," she suggests. Then, tentatively,

"Maybe…go spend some time upstate visiting your mom…? I mean, I guess that might not be…relaxing, exactly, but it – might help."

_Sure, Alex, that sounds like a great way for him to unwind_, she berates herself sarcastically. _Visiting his dying mother in the mental institution where she lives. For Christ's sake. Spending time with family is something that will help you heal, but in his case it might just make things worse._

_Well, possibly. But I still think he needs to see her,_ she argues with herself.

Bobby gives her an unreadable look, and then sighs, dropping his head into his hands and staring at the table. She hesitates, pity warring with uncertainty. She doesn't know what to say, can't find the energy to carry the conversation anymore. _God, I'm tired._

To her surprise, Bobby speaks up.

"I thought you said…maybe we could take the time together." He's still focused on the table and his voice is muffled. "Does this mean you – don't want to do that anymore?"

"Oh – Bobby, no." She stretches out a hand, stopping just short of touching him.

"Of course I do. I just…figured maybe you'd want to visit your mom on your own. I was thinking…I could hang out in town with my folks and Jen and Mike and Owen for a week or so…and then, I don't know, maybe I could drive upstate to join you…or something. If you want."

She stumbles to a stop as he lifts his head and gazes at her.

"You've thought about this, haven't you," he asks. She shrugs, embarrassed, and stares in her turn at her fingers, twisting nervously together on the table. He lets one hand fall to cover hers.

"Thank you," he says. "I'm sorry I'm being – such a jerk."

She swallows hard.

"I haven't exactly been easy to be around either, lately," she mutters. "I think we're even, on that front. Just…promise me you won't try to weasel out of this vacation."

"I never _weasel_, Eames," he says, mock innocent. "Manipulate, deflect, distract, maybe…but _weasel?_ Never."

She rolls her eyes at him, savouring the flash of humour, the brief moment of normalcy. _God, we need more of that. I hope two weeks will be enough for us to find it._

* * *

_There are nights full of anger  
Words that are thrown  
Tempers that are shattered and thin  
And the moments of magic  
Are just too short  
They're over before they begin_

_**-- Blue Rodeo, "Till I Am Myself"**_

TBC in Chapter 3…The First Week


	4. Chapter 3

**TILL I AM MYSELF AGAIN (3/?)**

_Please see Prologue for disclaimers._

* * *

So, they file all their paperwork and bring Logan and Wheeler up to date on their open cases. Logan – of course - grumbles about them dumping all the work on him while they run off to lie on a beach somewhere. He doesn't specifically mention Tahiti, but she thinks exasperatedly that he and Ross are probably going to end up getting along just fine.

"We're being given an opportunity here," says Wheeler pointedly. "Let's not screw it up."

"Uh huh. _Thanks_, Wheeler," Logan snaps, and Alex feels a stab of sympathy for both of them. _God, that awkward getting-to-know-you stage of the partnership, where you're constantly stepping on each other's toes…I wouldn't want to be back there, no sirree._

Not that she and her partner are exactly at the top of their game these days…but rather than getting on each other's nerves, it's more that they're being _too_ careful with one another, navigating tentatively around unspoken emotional minefields. They seem to have agreed – without ever actually talking about it, of course – to pretend to each other that everything's fine. He swallows his guilt and worry about her recovery and his concerns about her coming back to work early, and she doesn't ask about his mother, or about Jo and Declan Gage and how he's dealing with that whole debacle.

_A classic coping mechanism_, she hears Dr. Nahdi say in her mind, with her precise diction and soft, slightly lilting accent (Tunisian, Alex found out when she pulled the files on her Department-assigned psychologist). _But is it healthy, Alex, to withdraw instead of confronting those emotions?_

_Well, d-uh. Of course not,_ Alex thinks grumpily. She hates the thought that she's being cowardly, taking the easy way out. _But damn it, why should I have to be the one to force the issue? Haven't I worked hard enough already, dealing with my own trauma?_ The prospect of facing Bobby's wounds when her own are still healing – it makes her flinch inwardly and want to hide.

And that's leaving aside the fact that he clearly doesn't want to talk about any of it – to her or to anyone – and she can't stand the thought of pushing him, fighting with him about it, hurting him any further. Instead, she's been waiting – withdrawing, letting him withdraw, and waiting until they're both healed, separately. And while she waits, the silences grow between them. The no-man's-land where they've parked all the things they aren't talking about stretches between them likewise; she knows it's only going to get harder and harder to cross.

It's happened before, after all. She learned in their first year of partnership that one of Bobby's main responses to stress is to develop a sort of…tunnel vision. His tendency to live inside his own head becomes drastically more pronounced – she thinks it wouldn't be going too far to say that he actually forgets that he's a physical entity moving through a physical world. Pesky reminders like hunger, the need for sleep, other people trying to interact with him – he brushes them aside like so many mosquitoes.

The thing is…when they were just partners, she could handle that. She's never liked it, has always struggled with feeling hurt that he's ignoring her, that he doesn't trust her enough to unburden himself to her – but once she'd gotten a handle on how his mind worked, and learned something of the demons he carried with him everywhere, she got better at letting him disappear down the rabbit hole when he needed to. _After all, you get all prickly and impatient when you're stressed or upset,_ she reasoned with herself. _Same offence – just a different MO_. _And anyway, he always comes back, both literally and figuratively. _

In retrospect, she probably should have anticipated how much harder it would be, once they were in a relationship outside of work. How she would know the signs, know that he was withdrawing and why…and still feel so damn lonely when it happened. This time round is no exception. He's physically there with her, but not really _present. _He's pretty much his usual self at work, but it's as if maintaining that level of interaction takes all his resources, and in most other areas, he's just going through the motions. _And in some areas, he's not even doing that,_ she thinks with a sigh. _See "living in one's head" above, corollary B: no touching. _There are exceptions, of course – if he's around when she has a nightmare, or is otherwise in obvious need of comfort – but even then, she can feel the effort it takes him to move past the barriers, both physical and emotional. She tells herself she can live without his arms around her when they get home after work, or his kiss on the top of her head when they cross paths in the bathroom in the morning – she'd rather go without, in fact, than have him touch her only because he knows it's the right thing to do…but she misses tactile, casually affectionate Bobby with a constant, low-grade ache.

A couple of weeks ago, her GP cleared her for moderate exercise ("including the intimate kind," nudge-nudge, wink-wink) and at the time, she'd sighed inwardly. _If only._ Since then she has actually considered seducing him, knowing that she could do it if she really tried: force him to come out of hiding, hope that he physical connection would help them bridge the emotional distance. But she finds herself paralysed by the fear that he might refuse her – or worse, _not_ refuse and then resent her for it afterwards. Seeing him retreat from her again after it was over would just make everything worse, she knows. So…she waits, telling herself it'll be okay - it always has been before...eventually. _He'll come out of it on his own. He will._

"Hey, earth to Eames," Logan prods. "What, are you already on vacation here?"

"Sorry," she says, forcing herself out of her reverie and bracing herself for more snark from Logan as Bobby hands over the multiple pages of notes he's spent the greater part of the past few nights obsessively typing up. Crime scene analyses, victimology, preliminary profiles…it probably looks to Logan and Wheeler like Bobby doesn't trust them, but she knows it's just that he needs to feel he's done _everything_ he can, or he won't be able to let the cases go.

_At least he has agreed to let them go – that's got to be a good sign,_ she thinks, pushing away the feeling that she's grasping at straws. _Maybe if he goes and spends some time with his mom – time where he doesn't have to feel torn about work and me and everything else – maybe that'll help._ _It had better. _

The frightening truth is that she's too much bound to him now. She won't be entirely well until he is – until they've fixed what's wrong between them, together.

_If we can._

After their meeting with Logan and Wheeler, they lock up their desks and head down to the parking garage.

"I'm going to my parents' place for dinner – you're invited, if you want to come along," she says.

"Thanks, but I – I actually think I'll get going…go up to Carmel Ridge tonight. I drove in this morning, so I can leave from here. I have my bag in the car."

"Oh," she says, taken aback. "Okay."

"I, uh…I have a room booked in a motel in Carmel. I just – now that I've decided to do this, I feel like I need…to leave. To get there as soon as I can. There's – a lot to do…with my mom's treatment, her doctors…"

"Of course," she says, fighting a sudden feeling of emptiness. _You wanted him to do this,_ she reminds herself. _It's only for a week, and then you'll be joining him. _Although they haven't actually discussed that part of the plan, since she first suggested it. She'd thought he liked the idea, in the end – but he hasn't brought it up again, and she's finding it hard to read him, hard to know what he really wants.

As they reach his car, she straightens her shoulders and gives herself a mental shake. She circles round to the trunk and taps on the lid.

"Open it up," she says, in a pretty good approximation of her tough cop voice.

"What – why?" Bobby looks nonplussed, but follows orders.

"I want to see this bag you claim to have packed," she says, pulling the grey duffel towards her, "to make sure you don't try to smuggle any case files along."

She sorts through the carefully folded clothes, and zips up the bag again.

"Do I pass, Officer?" Bobby asks, amused. She snaps her fingers at him.

"Briefcase, please."

He holds it open for her. "See? No laptop."

"Good." She looks up at him, and her gruff attitude crumbles. _Please don't leave me alone _is what she wants to say, but what comes out instead is,

"It's a vacation, Bobby. Try to remember the meaning of the word, okay?"

"I will if you will," he says softly. It's an old line between them, a reference to bargains they've made with one another before, and the way he says it, holding her gaze as though he's really _seeing_ her for once, gives her a flash of hope – a feeling that the distance between them is, maybe, not as great as it seems. She swallows hard and nods.

"I'll try."

He looks quickly from side to side, scanning the garage for prying eyes, and then leans down and kisses her, hard and fast, his hand gentle on her cheek and her neck, slipping into her hair. She leans into him, for once not caring that someone might see them, overwhelmed with yearning for the simple touch.

"Take care of yourself," he mumbles against her mouth. "I'll talk to you soon."

He pulls away abruptly, and with an effort she smiles weakly and lets him go.

* * *

TBC in Chapter Four…The First Week (Part Two) 


	5. Chapter 4

**TILL I AM MYSELF AGAIN, Chapter 4/?**

_Please see Prologue for disclaimers._

**Author's Note: Huge thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far. I'm sorry I suck so much at replying, but your comments are VERY much appreciated.**

* * *

"What are you going to do for your holiday?" asks Dr. Nahdi during their session on Saturday morning. Alex makes some true-but-innocuous answer – _rest, spend time with family and friends, maybe get out of the city for a few days_ – but inside she's thinking _I'm going to finish getting better, damn it. I am, as my nieces would say, SO DONE with being traumatized. _

She spends the next day with her mom and dad, poring over paint chips and fabric samples and furniture catalogues, and then she finally takes her brothers up on the generalized offer of help they'd made right after her kidnapping. _Now no one can say I'm not letting my family be part of my recovery,_ she thinks, although it's possible Dr. Nahdi didn't mean she should recruit her relatives to help her redecorate. _Whatever. _They pile all the furniture and household items she wants to keep into Luke's battered truck, and she calls a junk removal company for the rest – the dining room set and couch that came with the house, the terrible curtains and the paintings that Bobby was so gleefully scathing about when she first moved in…all of it goes to the Salvation Army.

_I'd be doing this anyway,_ she rationalizes, _even if Dr. Nahdi hadn't said it might help with the flashbacks. It's about time I made this place my own – it's been almost a year since I moved in._

She has the whole place cleaned from top to bottom, and after that come the painters, a delivery of new furniture and finally a brand new, state-of-the-art alarm system, recommended and installed by a friend from the Academy who now works as director of security for the Museum of Natural History. Her credit card isn't going to recover any time soon, but at the end of the week she stands in the front hallway, and takes what feels like the first deep, peaceful breath she's been able to manage in that place since she came back from the hospital.

_This was a good idea,_ she thinks with relief and satisfaction. _It feels like home._

The walls are still pretty bare, but she decides she'll ask Bobby to help her find some things to put up. It'll be fun, negotiating him down from "art that makes you think" to art that she can live with, but that he still finds worthy of the name. _It'll be something…safe…we can talk about, _she thinks wistfully. She's surprised by just how much she likes the idea of there being something of him in her home, something more than just clothes in a drawer and his things in her bathroom.

The redecorating also gives her an excuse to stay with Jen and Mike for most of the week, sleeping in the spare bedroom that has officially been designated "Aunt Alex's room." Much as she hates to admit it, she still sleeps better when she's not alone – and even after the nights that are interrupted by bad dreams, it's hard not to wake up cheerful when her alarm clock is the sound of her nephew creeping "quietly" into her room every morning to check that she's still there.

He's been told not to bother her if she's sleeping, so when she cracks an eye open, she knows she'll find him standing by her pillow, his sleep-tousled head just clearing the top of the mattress, staring hopefully at her from five inches away. It makes her laugh, every time. She's more grateful than she can express for his simple, uncomplicated presence – for the feeling of his small, strong arms around her neck and his hand in hers, his nonstop toddler babble and the way he laughs freely and delightedly when she grabs him and tickles him, just because she can't see him without wanting to hold him. Not to mention the fact that he's probably the only person in her life who _isn't_ worried about her, these days. It's a relief, to say the least.

"How's Bobby?" Jen asks on Wednesday evening. She's chopping vegetables for stirfry, and Alex is sitting at the kitchen table with Owen in her lap, supervising the creation of a complex structure involving blocks, cars and an egg carton appropriated out of the recycling box. The process seems to involve apparently infinite rounds of building, demolishing and rebuilding, in which her main assignment is to keep the various bits and pieces from flying off the table.

Alex sighs, her breath ruffling Owen's curly hair. _How's Bobby – now there's a very good question._

"I…don't really know."

"Have you talked to him much since he went upstate?"

"He calls every night…but he doesn't say much." And the conversations almost invariably leave her feeling lonely and…incomplete, somehow, like an opportunity missed, but she's never sure what she could have done to make things different.

"Any word on how his mother's doing?"

"Not really. I ask, but he just says she's doing as well as can be expected, or something equally non-specific, and then he changes the subject," she says exasperatedly.

"Maybe he just doesn't feel like getting into the details, if he's just spent all day dealing with her medical problems," Jen suggests.

"Yeah," Alex says, unconvinced. _That's probably part of it_, she thinks, _but it's not the whole story_.

"He's never talked much about his mother to me," she says, "nothing beyond the bare minimum. And I've never pushed him on it. Hell, I only learned that she had lymphoma because he told a suspect so in an interview, last month."

Off Jen's slightly shocked look, Alex waves a hand.

"It was a bonding thing. He does it all the time, establishing a rapport by sharing what looks like personal information…he doesn't usually tell the truth, or at least not the whole truth. This time, it just happened that the guy we were talking to – his wife was dying of cancer."

_And he killed his step-daughter because he thought she was making her mother's illness worse. All in the name of love. God, what a travesty._

"Poor thing," says Jen softly and it's not clear whether she means the wife or the husband.

"Yeah," Alex says, pushing away the memory of Ray Wiszneski with a determined effort. "I just wish he had told me directly – Bobby, I mean."

Jen frowns at the carrot she's peeling. "You just said you two don't talk about his mom. Maybe he wanted you to know, but he didn't know how to bring it up…so he took the opportunity when it came up in that interview - that was his way of telling you."

"Mmm."

_Great. What kind of couple does that make us, if we have to interrogate a criminal to communicate important personal stuff to each other?_

But she has to concede that it's true, there's no precedent in their relationship for any kind of real conversation about his mother. _No instructions in the manual_, she thinks tiredly. _That's got to change._

Jen chuckles suddenly.

"What?" Alex asks.

"It's just – you complaining that he's not telling you about something that's bothering him…I mean, come on, Al. You're the queen of _I'm fine, stop asking_…especially lately. Hello, pot? Meet kettle."

_Okay, okay. What's your point?_ She rolls her eyes at her sister.

"Fine. So I'm getting a taste of my own medicine. Doesn't mean it's good for Bobby or me."

"I know," says Jen, serious again. "But – you're driving up to join him in a few days, aren't you? If he's fine with you doing that, maybe that's a sign that he's ready to be more open about what's going on."

_Yeah, if._

On Thursday night, she screws up her courage and, when he calls, she asks him point blank if he still wants her to drive up to Carmel. There's a startled silence.

"Uh – yeah. Of course," he says slowly. She sighs inwardly. _Not exactly the ringing endorsement I was hoping for._

"Why – are you thinking you'd rather stay in the city?" he asks. "Because I would understand – your family…"

"No," she says hastily, unwilling to give him an easy excuse. "No, I still want to come. I just…"

_God, why is this so hard?_ She pinches the bridge of her nose, wishing they were having this conversation face to face so she could at least read his body language.

"I just can't tell if you really want me there," she finally says. "It seems like – maybe – you'd rather just keep dealing with…everything – your mom, her illness…on your own."

Another silence, and she hears him sigh. "I – yes, that is what I'm used to. I don't – want to burden you…"

"Don't even go there," she says sharply. "What do I _always_ tell you, when you say that?"

Silence, and then, grudgingly:

"That it's not a burden – that the burden is being shut out."

"Right."

She waits, listening to him take a breath to speak, and then stop – once, and then again. Her heart twists. _This is hard for him,_ she thinks. _Uncharted territory. Please_, she pleads with him silently. _Please don't push me away._

"This is different," he gets out at last. "I – my mother – she – it's a lot to deal with, Eames. I don't think you realize how much."

"Maybe not," she says slowly. "But why won't you give me a chance, instead of just assuming I can't handle it – or wouldn't want to?"

"I don't know how it would be, to…involve you. I don't know – what would happen."

"To us, do you mean?" she says baldly, deciding to ignore the several other ways he could have meant that. _We are damn well going to talk about the elephant in the room...well, one of them, anyway._

He pushes out an angry breath. "Yes, all right? Among other things, that is what I meant. Given everything that's been going on with us lately, can you blame me for not wanting to add something else to the mix?"

_First indication that he's aware things aren't right between us. Thank God._

"No," she says. "I understand – I do." She takes a steadying breath. _Ante up, Alex._

"It's the same reason I stopped telling you about my nightmares or my sessions with Dr. Nahdi…it's easier not to…and neither of us wants to add any more bad stuff to what the other is dealing with. But Bobby, it's not a good thing, can't you see that?"

She stops because her voice is shaking, all of a sudden, and she has to close her eyes tight against incipient tears.

"Alex – don't," Bobby says helplessly, sounding like he's got something caught in his throat. "I – I do see. I know."

It's not much, but it's something. She swallows hard and forges on.

"Maybe it is a terrible idea for me to come up to Carmel," she says a little desperately. "I don't know how we'll deal with it. But - I miss you, Bobby. I've really missed you, and I don't just mean this week…and I'm afraid of what will happen if we don't do _something_."

She lets out a long, trembling breath. _I'm afraid, and I said so out loud. Dr. Nahdi would be so pleased,_ she thinks ruefully. Bobby isn't saying anything, and she wishes suddenly and fiercely that she could reach through the phone lines and touch him, anchor herself with the movement of his chest rising and falling, the thud of his heart beating. The silence between them feels heavy, murky, a river so deep that she can't see the bottom of it anymore, and she imagines the words she's just spoken sinking like stones into darkness.

But then her partner clears his throat, and suddenly it's a little easier to breathe.

"So am I," he says with difficulty. "Afraid, I mean. And, I miss you too."

Pause. Then, with emphasis, "I miss you like crazy."

Miles away where he can't see her, she holds tight to the phone and flushes red.

"I – I want you to come and join me," he continues determinedly. "I don't – I hope – we can figure the rest out when you get here. Okay?"

"Okay," she says, limp with relief. Then,

"Like crazy, huh?" She thinks she might actually be grinning like an idiot – it's been so long that she's almost forgotten how it feels.

"Yeah."

She can hear the answering smile in his voice, and it warms her all the way through.

"Me too," she says softly. "I'll see you tomorrow."

* * *

TBC in Chapter Five…Together Again (finally!) 


	6. Chapter 5

**TILL I AM MYSELF AGAIN, Ch. 5/?**

_Please see Prologue for disclaimers._

**Author's Note: Ooof, these next two chapters were hard to write. I think...hope...the subsequent ones (probably only 2 or maybe 3 more) will come more easily. Many, many thanks to all who have read and reviewed - your comments make my day. :)**

* * *

On Friday morning, she has her last physical therapy session. 

"Well done, Alex," says Joanna, her physio. "If you can keep up the exercises I've shown you while you're away, I'll have no problem at all clearing you for active duty when you get back."

_Hah. Take that, _she thinks with fierce triumph, not sure who exactly she's addressing. Her trauma, maybe.

To celebrate, she goes home, showers, and digs her favourite red tank top out of the closet. She hasn't worn it in weeks because it's tight-fitting and goes on over her head, and she hasn't been able to handle the feeling of having her arms raised and trapped, even temporarily. But now, riding the wave of the morning's success, she takes a deep breath and pulls it on with as fluid a motion as she can manage. There's still a brief, horrible moment of panic, but when she gets her head and arms free and looks at herself in the mirror, she feels as though she's just laid a hefty opponent out flat with a roundhouse kick. _Take that, I said._

Her victory buzz lasts all the way into the afternoon, and halfway to Lake Carmel. It feels good to be driving, getting out of the city, flying along the highway with the radio turned up and the wind in her hair. But when she turns off the I-84 and sees the first sign for Lake Carmel, her exhilaration is dampened by a flutter of nerves, deep down in her stomach. _God, what am I doing here? _She's painfully aware that this trip crosses a line in her relationship with Bobby, one that they've barely acknowledged and certainly never stepped over before. _Maybe more than just one._

_Well, and so what?_ she argues with herself. _Lines, boundaries...we have too many of those, Bobby and I. We've been too reluctant to push at each other's defenses. _

When she pulls up in front of the main entrance at Carmel Ridge, he's waiting for her on the steps. She feels a dizzying rush of gladness at the sight of him, followed almost immediately by sudden, paralyzing shyness. It feels like they've been apart much longer than a week. _This is ridiculous,_ she thinks, clenching her hands on the steering wheel to stop them from shaking. _It's only Bobby. And it's only been six days since you saw him last. Get a grip, Alex. _

Still, she takes her time getting out of the car and moving round to him, trying to figure out what to say…how to act…_just act normal,_ she tells herself, but the problem is there is no _normal _for them in this situation.

In the end, it's a moot point. When she's finally standing in front of him, he doesn't say a word – just reaches out and pulls her into a tight, enveloping hug.

_Oh. Okay. This is good._

She wraps her arms around his waist and presses herself as close as she can get.

"Hi," he says, voice muffled in her hair.

"God, I missed you," she mutters into his chest. He hugs her tighter in reply, and she feels the strangeness recede a little.

Unfortunately, it comes rushing back with a vengeance as they drive into town. Bobby is twitchy and nervous and oddly formal, almost as though she's a guest he doesn't know very well and doesn't want to scare off. _It's me,_ she wants to tell him, _calm down. I'm not going anywhere._ But she can't find a way to say it, and they end up making stilted conversation about the scenery and – God help them – the weather. If it weren't so damn awkward she'd be amused at their sudden inability to function in this new context.

_In which Bobby and Alex attempt to be a Couple on Vacation. Watch them flounder! Hours of entertainment for the whole family! Piles of (emotional) baggage sold separately._

_Gah._

She squirms inwardly, and breathes a sigh of relief when they arrive at the motel. The room is trying a little too hard to achieve the quaint, pretty, small-town vibe…but it has a big, comfortable-looking bed and windows that look out across a green lawn towards Lake Carmel, which she can just barely glimpse at a distance, sparkling blue through the trees.

"This is nice," she says, dropping her bag on a chair. "Have you stayed here before?"

"No, actually," he replies. "Carmel Ridge has some guest rooms for family members… I've always slept there when I'm staying overnight. But I figured – you'd – we'd prefer to be in town…so I asked around. Everyone said this was a good place."

"It is," she says, smiling inwardly at the revelation that he has actually put some thought into their time here together.

He disappears into the bathroom, and she continues her inspection of the room, stopping at the table by the window. It's covered with haphazard piles of photocopies, pages of notes in her partner's hurried scrawl, bulky library books and a thick file folder with what looks like a medical chart sticking out of it. _Bobby in research mode,_ she thinks. _Of course. _.

He emerges and sees her looking at the evidence. Feeling unaccountably as though she's been caught trespassing, she fumbles for something to say.

"This doesn't exactly look like vacation reading."

She was trying for a casual, neutral, just-making-conversation sort of tone – but he takes it as a rebuke, giving her an exasperated look.

"I can't _not_ – there's a lot to look into, Eames. Different cancer treatments, and figuring out how they might interact with her other meds…I've been spending a lot of time online at the library. I know it doesn't sound very restful…but I have to do it, okay? I just…"

She lifts a hand, stopping him mid-sentence.

"Bobby – don't. I didn't mean it that way," she says carefully. "I know I pretty much forced this whole holiday on you…you don't have to defend how you're spending it to me."

She looks down at the pages of notes again.

"Your mom is lucky to have you in her corner," she says softly. _God knows there's nobody I'd rather have as my advocate, if I was suffering from an obscure combination of diseases that nobody knows enough about._

He half-shakes his head as though he'd like to contradict her on that, and sits down slowly on the edge of the bed across from her.

"You – it was the right thing to do, to make me take the time off," he says finally. "I'm sorry I was…so difficult about it. I do feel better, having had the time to actually get into all the research, to think about it properly and talk to her about it…"

She contemplates him for a long moment. _He does look calmer. More…grounded than he did a week ago. _

"Good," she says. "That's good."

Another silence. She feels as though she's trying to have a conversation in a language that she doesn't speak very well…fumbling for words, starting to say something and then revising it mid-thought because it's just too complicated. She's about to give up and make some exaggeratedly cheerful comment along the lines of _I'm starving, where's dinner_, when he reaches out suddenly and takes her hand. Pulling her close, he wraps his arms around her hips and turns his face into her stomach.

She lets out a shaky breath, and hugs him back. _Okay, maybe we should stick to communicating this way, for now, _she thinks. _We're not doing so hot at the whole talking thing, but this…this is all right. More than all right._

When she runs her hand through his hair, scraping her nails gently against his scalp, he sighs and shivers a little, and she's instantly submerged in a wave of painful tenderness. _God, he's just as starved for touch as I am, _she realizes, eyes pricking with tears. _I should have remembered – he denies himself comfort first and foremost, every time._ She holds him tighter, one hand moving gently in his hair, the other stroking down his neck, across his shoulders and back again, revelling in the feeling of his arms around her and his breath warm on her skin through her top.

It's not always a good thing, the way everything that's complicated between them just…unravels when they touch. But right now, all she feels is profound gratitude for the peace that comes with it.

Of course, her stomach picks that moment to growl. Loudly. Right in her partner's ear. He snorts with amusement and pulls back to look up at her.

"Wow."

_Lovely. Way to ruin the mood there, Alex._

"Sorry," she says sheepishly. "Lunch was a long time ago."

"Oh – of course. We should – get some dinner," he says, standing up a little too quickly, so that she has to step back in hurry. _Our rhythms are off,_ she thinks.

"There's a place down the street…" he's saying, rubbing the back of his neck nervously.

"Sounds good," she replies. "Lead the way."

They walk in silence down the lane towards the town's main street, and she's still at a loss for words, but after a minute she slips her hand into his. He starts as though he had forgotten her presence, but after a second he gives her a small smile, his fingers tightening around hers.

_We can do this,_ she thinks. _Baby steps._

Over dinner, they actually manage to have a semi-normal conversation, although she does most of the talking.

"Did you get rid of those terrible prints?" he asks when she tells him about redecorating the house.

"Yes," she says.

"Thank God," he says with exaggerated relief.

"Shut up, you," she says, her lips twitching. "They weren't _that_ bad…"

"Oh yes…yes, they were."

He grins at her, and the air between them seems to lighten. After that, the silences that fall are less oppressive and she thinks _maybe this will be all right, after all._ But he still hasn't said anything about his mother, or about what he's been doing all week, even though she's given him lots of openings.

"Okay, Goren, your turn in the hot seat," she says at last, trying to make a joke out of it. He gives her a blank look, and she rolls her eyes.

"Tell me about your week…" she prompts. He sighs. _Do I have to? _ She raises her eyebrows at him: _yes, you do._

"Come on, Bobby. Please." she says, her voice low. He tenses up, fidgeting uncomfortably in his chair, and she hates that she's pushing him like this. _But what else can I do?_

"It's been…hard," he says finally, staring at his own fingers folding and re-folding a napkin flat on the table.

"I've spent most of the week talking to her doctors and the rest of the care staff about – how to proceed, different treatments…. She'll have to have a lot of tests…she hates tests. She – she tends to think that the doctors are trying to hurt her."

He twists the napkin tight and then abruptly drops it, sitting back in his chair. He looks like he wants to bolt, and she casts about for something neutral and reassuring to say.

"Does she…understand that she's sick? Physically, I mean?" she asks tentatively. He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.

"Yeah," he says. His lip quirks up in the ghost of a smile. "She's mad as hell about it."

"I can imagine," says Alex, even though she can't, really. Can't fathom what it must be like to have lived your life with one debilitating illness, only to find out yourself threatened by another.

"She wants to beat the cancer," he says. "But the stress…it takes its toll. Mentally, I mean. She has…good days and bad days. It helps that I've been able to stay for a longer visit, though. She's only had one really bad day since I've been here."

"Wednesday?" Alex asks, but it's not really a question.

"Yeah." Bobby looks taken aback. "How'd you…?"

"I guessed – when you called that night," she says shortly, swallowing sudden irritation. _Yeah, I had to figure it out, because you certainly didn't say anything about it_.

Bobby looks at her tiredly.

"You think I should be talking to you more about what's going on with my mom."

She pushes out a breath.

"I – yeah, I do." _I want you to _want_ to tell me,_ she thinks sadly.

"I don't understand why you feel like you have to deal with it alone," she says instead.

"You wouldn't," he says, and it almost sounds like an accusation. "Not with the family you grew up in. You're as bad as I am at asking for help – but the difference is, you've always known that you had people around you who _would _help, if you needed them to. Who wouldn't judge you, or – or end up hurting you."

"Okay," she says slowly. "But Bobby – you have people like that around you now, even if you didn't when you were younger. I know you're in the habit of taking everything on yourself, but –

"No," he interrupts. "It's not just a _habit_, Eames. It's…a necessity. It's how I cope."

She looks at him skeptically. "Explain to me how that works." _Because I don't think it IS working – not anymore._

He sighs, leaning forward on his elbows and scrubbing both hands over his face.

"I – compartmentalize. You should recognize that – you're a master at it yourself."

He looks at her through his fingers, a brief flash of humour. She raises an eyebrow at him. _Yeah, and so what? You wanna make something of it?_

"I think most people do that," she says. "Especially people with jobs like ours."

"I know. But for me it's…more than that. More deeply ingrained. Like – like a survival instinct, a fight-or-flight thing. I'm…not very rational about it."

"Mmm. I've noticed," she says, gently sardonic. He sighs.

"Yeah. Look, ever since I was a little kid, the way I've dealt with my mom's situation is to keep her…compartment…away from all the others. It's always been…better for me, her, everyone… if I – kept things simple. Didn't bring friends home, or tell anyone much about her problems. Focused on school – or work – when I was there, and on her when I was at home. Put my life in boxes – job, family, personal stuff – and never let them get mixed up with each other."

"That sounds – hard." Alex says softly. He lifts one shoulder in a small shrug.

"I guess. But it was better than the alternative."

Off her questioning look, he makes a helpless gesture. "Almost every time I've ever deviated from that pattern…every time I've let something from one compartment bleed into one of the others…bad things have happened. People…get hurt."

He raises suddenly haunted eyes to hers. "_You_ got hurt."

"What?" _When did we start talking about me?_

"Declan Gage," he mutters, and she can't help it, she flinches. At least he's staring at the table again and doesn't notice. "I let myself see him as – as some sort of father figure, not just a teacher and colleague. That blinded me to what was going on between him and his daughter…and look what happened."

She guesses it makes sense, according to a twisted guilt-ridden Goren sort of logic. But…

_Not this again. For Christ's sake._

"God, Bobby, I'm so tired of telling you – what happened Wasn't. Your. Fault." She grits the words out.

"I'm pretty tired of hearing you say it, too!" he snaps back. She contemplates him for a moment in frustrated silence, and then pushes back from the table.

"I really don't feel like having this argument again. Maybe you should get the bill."

In the bathroom, she stares at herself in the mirror. _Damn, damn, damn. We were doing okay there, for a minute. Why the hell did he have to bring up the Gages?_

She splashes cold water on her face and thinks about what he said. _Compartments. Boundaries. And round and round the mulberry bush we go. _

When she sits back down, he's signing the credit card slip and won't meet her eyes.

"I wasn't trying to start a fight about whether it was my fault," he mutters. "I was trying to give you an example – to explain…"

He drops the pen and stares at her, his face hard and closed-off. "You know what? Never mind. Let's go."

He's up from the table and half way across the restaurant before she can respond. She lets him go – no way in hell is she going to scurry in his wake like some little kid who can't keep up – and stares unseeing at his empty chair. Her irritation at him for giving up so easily is competing with the sinking feeling that it was actually she who pushed the conversation off the rails, this time. _Crap._ She sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose and passing a hand over her face, abruptly bone-weary. It's one of the lingering effects of her ordeal – the way exhaustion hits her heavily and without warning, and suddenly all she wants to do is sleep. _Like being pregnant, only without the nice happy explanation. _

When she gets to the door of the restaurant, she's expecting to find him already long gone, either back to the motel or walking around the block to cool off. But to her surprise he's sitting on the curb with his back to her, arms crossed on his drawn-up knees, staring out at the empty street. Tension clear in every line of his body…but still, he's waiting for her.

She leans on the doorframe, looking at him, too tired to process the complicated tangle of emotions tumbling through her mind. Frustration, hurt, guilt, loneliness, all of it shot through with that aching tenderness …and how, in the middle of everything, she wonders exasperatedly, can she also be noticing how nice he looks in a T-shirt and jeans, and how much she likes what crossing his arms like that does to the muscles in his back…?

"Bobby," she says.

He turns his head, and then stands up slowly, looking wary and defiant. When she comes up close and puts her arms around him, he stands stiffly for a second, and then sighs and relaxes, holding her gently.

"I'm sorry," she says. "You were trying to tell me something, like I asked you to, and I – latched onto the wrong part of it. Clearly I still have a – bit of a knee-jerk reaction to that man's name."

"It's okay," says Bobby. "I shouldn't have brought him up."

She takes a determined breath and pulls back to look up at him.

"No," she says. "You should. I want you to. We need to talk about it – about the Gages, about your mother, all of it." She tightens her arms around him. "I don't care how many tries it takes, we are going to work it all out, understand?"

He looks down at her with shadowed eyes, and she can tell he doesn't quite believe her, but he lifts a hand and pushes her hair behind her ear, stroking his thumb across her cheek and along the line of her jaw. She closes her eyes and leans into his touch.

"But first…sleep," she mumbles. "Please can we just go back to the room and sleep on it all till tomorrow?"

He chuckles, a small tired sound.

"Okay," he says.

* * *

TBC in Chapter Six – The Morning After 


	7. Chapter 6

**TILL I AM MYSELF AGAIN, Ch. 6/?**

_Please see Prologue for disclaimers. _

_**WARNING: This chapter rated M for grown-ups doing grown-up things.**_

**Author's Note: I know that in "The War At Home", we**** learned that Eames' husband was named Joe. But in my little fanfic world, he's Rory. And Eames' nephew is Owen, and her sister is Jen (and her other brothers are Bill and Luke, but they're barely mentioned in this story). So there. :)  
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She sleeps through the night deep and dreamlessly, coming slowly awake to bright sunlight streaming through the window. Bobby is sitting up beside her in bed, reading. When she stirs, stretching carefully, he looks over at her and smiles slightly.

"Good morning."

"Morning," she replies groggily. She lies there watching him in profile, just enjoying the sight of him. He seems relaxed, more at peace than he did the night before, as though some strain has been lifted, even if only temporarily. She hopes it's because he's starting to believe what she said last night: _we are going to work it all out. You're not alone in this…whatever "this" is._

After a minute she stumbles to the bathroom, splashes some water on her face and contemplates herself in the mirror. _Wow – I feel…rested_, she thinks with satisfaction. _No nightmares. A small miracle. _She crawls back into bed and looks over Bobby's shoulder to see what he's engrossed in. It's the New York Times crossword, already a third finished...which, for him, constitutes escapist reading.

_Excellent._ She grins to herself with approval and curls up next to him. After a second's hesitation, she slips an arm around his neck and rests her cheek on his shoulder, half expecting him to find some excuse to pull away. But he stays warm and quiet beside her, so she watches him methodically fill in the boxes and tick off the clues, feeling simple contentment wash through her like the soft morning light. Her eyes are slipping shut again when he suddenly abandons the crossword, dropping it on the floor next to the bed.

"What – the great Goren, defeated by the Saturday crossword? Never thought I'd see the day," she says slyly.

"Nah," he says, shifting her head off his shoulder to put an arm around her. "Not defeated…just – distracted."

"Oh?" she says innocently. "Distracted by what?"

"Mmmh…you know, little things…" he replies with a pointed look.

"Hey – who are you calling little?" she demands, sitting up straight in mock annoyance.

He grins, but doesn't bother to answer, and they just sit there smiling at each other for a long moment.

"So," she says tentatively into the silence. "I've been thinking about what you said last night…"

He flinches and looks away, and she puts a hand on his thigh. "Hold on. Just – listen, okay?"

She waits until he nods reluctantly.

"About compartmentalizing…I want you to know that I get that. I do. I've been there. Not like you, not all my life – but…"

She takes a deep breath. She fell asleep last night thinking about this, about how to say what she wants to say, how to get through to him…but it still feels like she's shutting her eyes and venturing blindly out onto strange, uncertain ground.

"After Rory was killed," she says deliberately, "that's how I coped, too."

She has never talked about that time in her life much – to anyone – and she feels rather than sees her partner's head come up, interest immediately sharpened.

"Boxes, like you said – one for all the grief and anger, one for work, one for family… and so on and on."

The thought makes her sad now, because it's not what Rory would have wanted for her. Well, the coping and surviving, sure – but not the loneliness that comes with putting up those kinds of barriers._ "You've gotta live, Alexandra, even if some days it hurts like hell"_…She can almost hear him saying it.

Bobby's listening so hard she can feel it, and she has to struggle not to shy away from the searchlight-like intensity of his focus. She makes herself meet his gaze.

"And it worked…it did, for a long time. But in the end…I was kidding myself, Bobby."

"What – what do you mean?"

"It wasn't realistic…to think I could live that way. Could be happy like that. Life is just – messy. Things happen that don't fit into the categories."

"Like…?" He challenges her.

"Well…like being pregnant with Owen, for one," she says simply. "I tried, at first…but I couldn't keep the way I felt about him all under control in a box labeled 'aunt' or even 'surrogate.' Having him changed _every_ part of my life. And that was…hard to deal with."

She looks at him wryly. "You know – you were there."

"I remember," he says softly.

"But in the end…it was a good thing. One of the best things that's ever happened to me, in so many more ways than I ever expected."

She wonders if she'll ever be able to express to her nephew how grateful she is to him for that – for being the one to put the first crack in the walls she'd built up and defended so strongly for so long. _I should tell Jen, too,_ she thinks suddenly.

Bobby's still watching her, and she drags her mind back to the present.

"And then…there's you," she says. He blinks, and she has to smile at how nonplussed he looks.

"Me?"

"You. My biggest failure of compartmentalization."

"Oh – you mean because we got involved while working together," he supplies.

"Yeah," she says. "But – more than that."

She stiffens her spine and lifts her chin to look him straight in the eye.

"I swore," she says with emphasis. "After Rory died, I _swore_ to myself that I would never fall in love with another cop."

Pause.

"And yet…here I am," she says softly.

The words hang between them for a heartbeat, then another.

"Really?" he says, sounding like he has something caught in his throat.

Two years, she thinks distantly. Two years they've been together, and they've never spoken the word _love_ to each other. Until recently, she'd have said they didn't need to. It's implied in everything they are together…and anyway, she's heard too many suspects claim love when they really mean _greed_ or _selfishness_ or _powerlust_. In her mind, actions are where the truth lies.

But now, she thinks maybe Dr. Nahdi was right, in their sessions. _Saying a thing out loud gives you something to hang on to. _

"Yes, really."

She watches Bobby's eyes go wide and bright, and suddenly she can't stand not to be touching him. When she leans forward and fits her mouth to his, he responds immediately with a small sound of need, and then they're kissing, slow and warm and easy, and _oh, God_, she thinks. _It's been so long_…so long since they've done this just for the pleasure of it, not for comfort or reassurance from fear, and she shivers all over as her tongue strokes his.

"Alex," he mumbles into her mouth, pulling her into his lap. She rocks against him once, slowly, and they both breathe in sharply.

"Do that again…" he says shakily.

So she does, and he spreads his fingers on her hips to keep her there and ducks his head to drag his lips across her collarbone and up her throat. She feels dizzy with lust and sudden fierce happiness, all her nerve endings singing _glory hallelujah_…and when they topple over onto the bed together, she giggles into his shoulder out of sheer, giddy release.

Stretched out beside her, propped on one elbow, he gazes at her with a soft, wondering smile.

"Did you just say what I think you said?" he asks.

"Yeah," she says, smiling slowly back. _And someday soon, I'll be able to say it without talking around it like I did just now. I hope._

Bobby drops his forehead to the pillow next to her shoulder, looking suddenly overcome.

"Oh God. Alex, I – you know how I feel, at least I hope you do…"

"I know," she says. "It's okay, Bobby."

He spreads his hand on her stomach, and she shivers again.

"I just – need to get a handle on…on everything. There's so much…so much I want to say to you…I don't even know where to start."

_That, in itself, is a beginning,_ she thinks with profound relief. _And as for the rest…_

"Later," she says, slipping her leg in between his and moving close to kiss him again. He resists at first, but she can tell the moment he lets himself go: he groans and rolls them over, grinding his hips into hers, and if her mouth was free she'd laugh out loud again for joy at how good he feels, warmth and weight and hardness in all the right places.

"Hey," she says breathlessly, breaking the kiss. "Look – something I've been meaning to show you."

Slowly, she stretches up, folding her hands behind her head with calculated nonchalance. Distracted by the feel of her body sliding against his, she actually manages it with only a slight mental flinch. Bobby, eyes glazed with desire, takes a second to get it – but when he does, his sudden grin is blinding.

"You can lift your arms," he says, and the relief and pride in his voice brings a lump to her throat even as she can't help smiling back, big and wide.

"Does it hurt?" he asks, running one hand in a long, warm caress from her wrist along the sensitive underside of her arm and down her ribcage to her waist, playing with the bottom of her top.

"Hardly at all, anymore," she says, abandoning her pose to loop her arms around his neck. "And look how I'm not freaking out, either."

That isn't strictly true – there's still a small panicked part of her that's struggling to squirm free and sit up, gasping for air. But she pushes it away, breathes deep the way Joanna has taught her and focuses on Bobby and the way his hand is sliding up under her pyjama top.

"Not freaking out…" he mutters vaguely. "Is that the generally accepted psychological term?"

She's not sure if he made her laugh at that precise moment on purpose, but it helps her through the difficult part of getting her top off, the brief second when the fabric slides over her face.

"Okay?" he checks, and she thinks _yeah, of course he knows._

"Yes," she says unsteadily, and gets to work divesting them both of the rest of their clothes. Then – at last– they're naked on the bed together and it feels so good, so familiar to have him pressed against her, his beautiful hands leaving trails of tingling warmth everywhere he touches her, that she completely forgets about all her fading bruises and scars until he pulls away slightly, tracing a feather-light finger over the ugly marks. His face is shadowed, and she pleads with him in her mind…_Please can we just be happy…not think about all the bad stuff…_

"Bobby," she says softly, touching his face, making him look her in the eye. "I'm fine," she insists. "I am."

He stares at her for a long second and then lets his forehead drop to rest on her stomach. She can see his jaw working. When he raises his head again, his eyes are bright with unshed tears.

"You," he says roughly, hitching himself up her body, "are so much more than _fine_."

He covers one breast with his mouth, tongue curling around her nipple, and she arches up against him with a gasp.

"You're beautiful," he mutters between warm, wet caresses. "And strong, and – "

She cuts him off with a hand between his legs, and it's his turn to groan deep in his throat, the sound vibrating over her skin. Fiercely determined not to take any of this for granted, she concentrates on the hot, firm weight of him in her palm, the way he gasps and pushes his hips towards her when she touches him, the rising urgency that makes her squirm against him until he answers her unspoken need with a rough, devouring kiss and long fingers stroking inside and out.

"Bobby – oh –

"I know. I know. You ready?"

She nods jerkily, incoherent with feeling.

"Slow," she says, reaching between their bodies to help him. He moans, bracing himself on his elbows and letting his head fall into the crook of her neck. As he pushes forward and she takes him in, slowly, so slowly, she can feel him trembling just a little, and all that's running through her mind is _if I had died in that basement…or if Wiszneski had shot him…God, we might never…_

Her voice breaks on his name, and she wraps her arms and legs around him and just holds him tightly. _Mineminemine_, she tells him wordlessly_. Safe._

After a long moment he pushes himself up just far enough to see her face, and she knows he can tell how overwhelmed she is. He leans in for a lingering kiss, lips traveling warm and reassuring over her cheeks, nose, eyelids…

"So…" he mutters. "Physical therapy...?"

A beat, and then they're both shaking with sudden, helpless laughter, and she feels it _everywhere_. Her giggle turns into a gasp and she shifts against him impatiently.

"Yeah. What are you waiting for…oh –

"Good?"

"Mmmyes. Don't stop…"

"I won't. I can't…God, you feel –

_Alive,_ she thinks. _I feel alive._

She knows sex won't fix anything, at least not on its own, but this…this feels like the start of something new. They've re-opened the wound, found the cracks in the walls, and it hurts like hell but it's _life_, and she never wants to let go, not ever again.

They're moving more frantically now, and she can feel her orgasm coiled like a spring inside her, close, closer…Bobby is muttering incoherently into her ear, breath and voice jagged with need, and without conscious thought she reaches an arm up to grasp the bed frame, searching for purchase – and that changes the angle, and suddenly Bobby is hitting just the right spot with every thrust, and one…two…_three_ is all it takes. She gasps, straining up into him, pleasure bursting through her like sunlight as he loses his rhythm and jerks hard and fast against her until at last they both spiral down…down…down and come to rest.

Slowly coming back to awareness, she realizes she's taking deep, gasping breaths, as though she hasn't filled her lungs properly in months, and she can feel her heart beating hard and fast all the way down to her toes. Bobby has collapsed across her body, his face still hidden in the crook of her neck. She wraps her arms around him again possessively, and when he rolls to take his weight off her, she follows, ending up lying mostly on top of him.

"God, I've missed this," she says into the hollow of his shoulder, abruptly close to tears. She wonders how it's possible to feel so wonderful and so…shattered, all at the same time.

"Me too," says Bobby. There's an unfamiliar hitch in his voice, and when she lifts her head to look at him, her heart twists painfully in her chest, because his eyes are squeezed shut and there are tears leaking out the corners. She swallows hard and shifts onto her side, reaching out to touch his cheek.

"Hey," she says.

He starts and blinks, and breathes in shakily, pressing the heels of both palms to his eyes.

"It's nothing," he says unevenly. He clears his throat, staring at the ceiling.

"I just – there's so much…everything's…really close to the surface, right now…"

"I know," she says. _Oh, I know._ She takes a shuddering breath and then she _is_ crying, just a little, tears slipping slowly down her cheeks.

She pushes her wet face into his shoulder and then, changing her mind, raises it to look at him. _No more hiding. _.

"Alex," he says painfully when he sees her weeping, but she shakes her head and smiles at him through the tears and after a second a small, rueful grin quirks his lips.

"We're a mess, aren't we."

"Yeah," she says, still smiling, letting her head fall to the pillow next to his.

She thinks she'd be happy just to lie there for ages looking at him, letting him look at her…but all too soon, he breaks the stillness, reaching down to pull the sheet up over both of them.

"Alex, listen, I –

He stops, swallows hard and shuts his eyes briefly. She reaches for his hand, tangling their fingers together, and he tries again.

"When Jo took you…" He glances at her and she squeezes his hand, hoping that her face is saying _it's okay, go on_ even though inside, a small part of her is flinching away in protest

"Well – you know that I – kind of fell apart. I've…I've _never_ felt like that. I was this close to losing it…and everyone thought I was just freaking out because you were my partner…and I couldn't tell them that it was so, so much worse than that."

He reaches out with his free hand to touch her hair, her shoulder, the curve of her hip with short, desperate movements, unable to settle.

"Declan kept - kept telling me to accept that you had to be dead, based on Sebastian's profile," he says with difficulty, and she does jerk a little at that, unable to stop herself.

_Jesus Christ. Nobody passed that little tidbit on._

"And I couldn't – I just couldn't handle that…I kept thinking _No_, this can't be happening, we haven't had enough time…time to be together," he finishes brokenly.

_Oh, Bobby…_The words, the pain behind them, it's all so fucking familiar. _Never. There's never enough time._ _And, oh God - how can I stand to go through that again?_ The aching need, the wonderful, amazing sense of completion – and the paralyzing fear that it could all be taken away at any moment…_I can't. Can I?_

But in the next breath she knows it's a pointless question, because she's already there. _Too late, Alex my girl. The barn door's wide open and those horses are long gone. Again._

"I know," she mutters, knuckling away the tears that won't stop trickling down. "I was – so scared…scared of what she was going to do to me, of – of not being strong enough…but more than anything – I was scared of not being able to get back to you."

She's really shaking now, and he makes a small, anguished sound and pulls her into his body, holding her close and tight, his heart thudding under her cheek. She concentrates on breathing deep, in and out, and feels him matching his rhythm to hers until it lulls them both into something approaching calm. He presses his lips to her hair, a wordless reassurance, and rests his chin on the top of her head.

"You've – you've done this before," he finally says tentatively into the silence. "How can we feel like this – and still function?"

_And there's the million-dollar question…_

She sighs, burrowing a little farther into his arms, comforted more than anything by the fact that he said _we_.

"I don't know. Rory – Rory used to say, we cope like the rest of the world does. People who aren't cops are just as likely to lose each other to accident or illness or their own differences… the important thing is not to lose each other to fear before anything ever happens."

She shakes her head.

"He was disgustingly hopeful, sometimes," she says grumpily. Bobby snorts.

"You're just annoyed because he was right."

_Probably._ She pulls back so she can see his face again. "I think…we'll just have to figure it out," she says. "Because the alternative…"

"…isn't an option," Bobby finishes. "I can't – I can't go back. That's… part of why I've been so messed up lately, I think. It's terrifying."

"All those compartments crashing in on each other…I know," she says.

"Lucky for me."

He touches her face, tracing a line with his thumb down her nose and across her lips, looking at her with a combination of tenderness, gratitude and awe that makes her squirm with embarrassment even as it warms her all the way through. Impulsively she launches herself at him, kissing him hard and clumsily.

"Me too," she says. "Thank you." Another kiss. "I feel – I think - we're on the same page again."

"Mmm…is that what you'd call this?" he mumbles teasingly. But his eyes echo her relief as he leans in to kiss her back, slow and deep and hungry. She's about to pull him over on top of her again when his cell phone vibrates on the bedside table.

"Who…?" she wonders. He reaches over to check the call display and freezes, looking back at her with mingled amusement and apprehension.

"It's my mother."

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TBC in Chapter Seven. 

Ring the bells that still can ring  
Forget your perfect offering  
There is a crack, a crack in everything  
That's how the light gets in.

-- Leonard Cohen, "Anthem"


	8. Chapter 7

**TILL I AM MYSELF AGAIN – Chapter 7/?**

_Please see Prologue for disclaimers._

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**Author's Note: I apologize for the loooong wait between updates. I think I jinxed myself last time by saying subsequent chapters would come more easily (sigh). This was supposed to be the part where Alex finally meets Mrs. Goren...but Bobby and Alex decided they weren't done talking, darn it. So the visit to Mom will be next. Anyway, many many thanks to those who are still reading and reviewing - I really appreciate your patience and your feedback!**

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"It's my mother."

_Yikes,_ Alex thinks, pulling the sheet up over herself. Then she feels silly – Frances Goren can't see them, after all.

Bobby's lip twitches, and she waves a hand at him, embarrassed, as the phone buzzes again.

"Don't you think you'd better get that?"

"Right." He sits up straighter and takes a deep breath, flipping the phone open.

"Hi, Mom. How are you doing?"

She curls up on her side and tries not to be too obvious about watching him as he talks. She wonders if he's uncomfortable with her listening in, but he tilts his head to look down at her, and smiles a little.

"Yeah," he says into the phone. "She's here." Pause. "Uh – really? Mom…are you sure that's a good idea?"

A longer pause. Alex can't make out words, but Mrs. Goren sounds annoyed, and Bobby's jaw tightens.

_Uh-oh_, she thinks. She's not sure how well the hard-won balance they've just achieved will stand up to…well, anything…while it's still so new and fragile. _I guess we'll see, won't we._

"All right…all right," says Bobby, conciliating. "I'll ask her. Yes, I promise. See you later, okay?

He shuts the phone and looks at it, pushing out a long breath.

"She…she wants you to come with me to see her, later today," he finally says.

_And here we go_, she thinks, bracing herself inwardly.

"Okay," she says slowly. "What about you – do _you_ want me to come?"

With an abrupt movement he turns away from her, dropping the phone on the bedside table.

"No," he mutters. "Yes. I don't know."

He's hunched over the side of the bed with his back to her, and all of a sudden it feels like he's put a lot more than just a foot or so of distance between them. _Damn it. Not again. _

"What are you afraid of?" she asks, as gently as she can.

A long, tense pause. Then,

"I'm afraid of how she'll act," he says tightly, almost angrily. "Of what you'll th-think."

_Oh, Bobby. _

Staring at his back, she knows they've finally gotten to the truth, the real reason behind his resistance where his mother is concerned…and she's suddenly terrified of saying the wrong thing. _Don't screw this up, Alex._

"You're afraid that if I spend time with your mom, that'll change how I think – feel – about you," she starts, feeling her way.

"I know you think it won't," he interrupts sharply. "But it will. You won't be able to help it. I've – it's been happening all my life. Starting with my father – her _husband_, Eames. He couldn't handle it, and he left us. And part of me – part of me doesn't blame him."

_I'm happy to blame him enough for both of us, _she thinks darkly. _Bastard. So he found he couldn't deal – fine. He should at the very least have made sure she was getting the care she needed – that his sons were getting what they needed, for Christ's sake. _

"But I'm not him," she says out loud. "I'm not any of those other people who got freaked out and left. I'm _not._ And I won't. I promise."

He sighs, and she can tell he doesn't really believe her.

_What can I say that he'll trust? Nothing, probably. Time to try switching gears, then. Distract, deflect, manipulate…I learned from the best, after all._

"Is meeting someone new…meeting me…something that might upset her?" she asks tentatively.

"I - maybe," Bobby says. For a second she's afraid he'll stop there, shut down that avenue of conversation too – but then he continues slowly.

"She's - suspicious of strangers, in general. A lot of the new people she's had to meet lately are doctors, and her – her delusions do tend to be focused on the people taking care of her. She thinks we're secretly plotting to hurt her or deceive her about what's wrong…that she's not getting the right kind of treatment…"

He's talking in short, forced bursts and she can feel the effort it takes him to push the words out, but at least he has turned back towards her in his effort to explain. She sits very still and tries her hardest to project nothing but matter-of-fact sympathy.

"But you - you're…not in that category, so it might be okay. And she did ask to see you. I just – I just don't know, that's the problem…"

He sighs. "Maybe she'll be fine – but the thing is, even when she's doing well, she's…not easy to deal with."

"What is she like?" _Careful, careful. Don't spook him._

"She's…abrupt. Not too good at following the thread of a normal social conversation…she goes off on tangents a lot, without any warning…says things that don't make sense…"

"Uh huh," Alex puts in dryly. "Like I haven't been dealing with that every day for the past seven years…"

Bobby shoots her a shocked look, and for an anxious second she's afraid that making a joke was the wrong move. Then he snorts, a surprised, relieved sound.

"Right," he says sheepishly. "But…she's worse than me, if you can imagine that. She isn't aware of how rude she can seem. Her affect is very – flat, a lot of the time. She says whatever goes through her head, she twists things around…she can be – quite brutal."

He's staring at his hands, compulsively smoothing the sheet across his knee. Suddenly he clenches his fists.

"It's just – so fucking _unfair_. She's my mother, for God's sake. You and she are the two most important people in my life…and I can't even introduce you without dreading the outcome."

"Oh, Bobby." The despair in his voice hurts to hear. "I hate that this is so hard for you. I don't know what to say to convince you that it doesn't _matter._"

She gazes at him, willing him to believe her. He won't meet her eyes, so she hitches herself closer and lets her cheek rest against his bare shoulder. He's stiff and tense, his skin cold to her touch, but she takes it as a hopeful sign that he doesn't pull away when she runs her hand down his arm and back up again in a slow caress.

"I mean – yeah, I want your mom to like me…I want us to be able to get along…but I want that for _your_ sake," she continues softly. "I'm sorry for her, and I have a lot of respect for her, for what she's been through in her life – but when it comes right down to it, I am in this for you. Well, for us – you and me. Nothing that she says or does is going to change that."

"You can't promise that. You don't know what you're getting into," he says again, and this time she can't quite keep herself from pulling away, can't keep the frustration out of her tone.

"Stop _saying_ that. You don't get to tell me what I can and can't promise, Goren! And besides – we go to work every damn day not knowing what we might be getting into. Weren't we just talking about this, for God's sake?!"

She takes a deep breath, scrubbing her hands through her hair, striving for calm.

"The past couple of months have been hell on wheels, right? But we survived. I survived. And the thing is, for me – in the past – that would have been the most important part: getting through it on my own."

A fleeting memory pops into her head: Dr. Nahdi, oh-so-neutral, saying _your independence is important to you, isn't it._ And how tempted she was to come back with _well, no shit, Sherlock._ But she didn't, and they actually ended up talking quite a lot about it, and it was the first time she admitted to herself that maybe she might learn something useful from her Department-ordered therapy.

"But this time – well, I know I'll be fine eventually, no matter what. But I also know that…that I'm better with you than I am alone. I just am."

Feeling exposed in all kinds of ways besides the obvious, she drags the sheet up over herself, and realizes that her hands are shaking. She wraps her arms around her knees, pulling them tight to her chest.

"And if you – if it's the same for you…"

"It is," Bobby cuts in, sounding shaky but determined. "God, of course it is."

That somehow makes it easier to breathe, to look at him.

"Then I think…I think you have to let me at least _try_ to be there for you, with your mom," she says. "See…I don't think we can pick and choose the things we let each other in on, anymore. God knows, doing that hasn't been working for us lately. Maybe we've just – changed too much…and now it has to be all – or nothing."

_For better or worse_, she thinks, and then _oh my god, I can't believe I just put it in those terms – even to myself. _

And just like that she's on the verge of tears again, remembering the first (and only) time she thought those words and then, later, spoke them aloud and meant them. She lets her forehead drop to her bent knees.

_Oh, Rory. It's so much harder now – now that I know just how bad "worse" can get. Wherever you are, I wish you'd lend me some of that annoying optimism of yours. I'm pretty sure I need it more than you do._

"Hey," says Bobby roughly. She feels his arms come around her. "Alex, don't…"

His voice is muffled in her hair. "I get it. I didn't mean to make you think I didn't. And you're right. I'm just…it's hard."

Silence for a moment, and then he lets out a long breath.

"But I want to try," he says. That brings her head up, because it's almost exactly what he said to her when they first decided to cross the line from friendship to something more, two years ago. _Does he remember…?_ But this is Bobby Goren, who almost never uses words by accident, and anyway the look he's giving her now is the same as it was then, too: afraid and determined all at once, with joy buried deep underneath it all. She feels an answering warmth blossom painfully in her chest.

"I – we – can give it a try, with my mom," he continues. "See how it goes. Okay?"

"Okay. It'll be all right," she promises, watery-eyed and smiling, meaning more than just Frances Goren. _We'll be all right. Look at how well things turned out last time we agreed to try something together. _

"I hope so." He smoothes the tear-tracks away with a gentle thumb on her cheeks, and his eyes are saying _I know_. _I'm counting on it._

"How'd you get to be so wise, anyway?" he asks lightly.

"Experience. And therapy," she says, knowing he'll laugh at the incongruity – Alex Eames, of all people, acknowledging the usefulness of her shrink. "You should try it sometime."

He snorts. "I have, as you well know. It's a work in progress…"

"Aren't we all…"

"Yeah."

Silence falls again. She leans against him, feeling drained. _Not that I'm not glad that we seem to be getting somewhere…but at this rate I'm going to need a vacation from my vacation._

_One minute you're waiting for the sky to fall  
And next you're dazzled by the beauty of it all…  
These fragile bodies of touch and taste  
This fragrant skin, this hair like lace  
Spirits open to a thrust of grace  
Never a friend you can afford to waste  
Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight  
Gotta kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight..._  
**-- Bruce Cockburn, "Lovers in a Dangerous Time"**

TBC in Chapter 8**...  
**


	9. Chapter 8

**TILL I AM MYSELF AGAIN – Chapter 8/?**

_Please see Prologue for disclaimers._

**Author's Note: Alex finally gets to meet Frances Goren. I guess that puts this fic officially into the realm of alternate universes, since "Endgame" (the last G/E episode of season 6) made it canon that the two had not yet met, several months after this story is supposed to have taken place. Oh well!**

**Thanks as always for all the wonderful comments. I apologize for not replying to them all, but I really appreciate the feedback. I'm nervous about this chapter, so would love to know what you think.  
**

* * *

_Wow,_ Alex thinks, later. _She's so much like Bobby. How was I not expecting that? He takes after his mother, and I never really knew it until now._

Frances Goren is rail-thin, abrupt and nervous, just as Bobby described her. But she also has her son's dark eyes, his stop-and-start speech patterns, and the same compelling presence that Alex has witnessed in her partner when he's at his most commanding.

_Larger than life, both of them_, she thinks. _Same tendency towards the grandiose._ She's used to Bobby muting or diverting the force of his personality, though, unless he's using it to get something he wants – usually in the interrogation room. Frances is…pretty unflinchingly intense. Disproportionately so, for a casual social visit – even if it is Meet The Girlfriend day.

"You have been my son's partner for seven years," she's saying.

"Yes, that's right."

"And you and he have been a couple for two."

"Yes," Alex repeats, wondering uneasily just how much Bobby confides in his mother. Having made the introductions, he's sitting silent and tense beside her. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see his knee jiggling uncontrollably. _Calm down,_ she wants to say to him. _You're making me even more nervous than I already am._

"And why haven't you come to visit me before now?"

"I…well, I didn't realize you wanted to see me," Alex starts, uncomfortably aware that she's prevaricating. Frances cuts her off.

"Don't bother making excuses – I know why. My son is ashamed of his crazy mother."

"Mom," Bobby protests. Frances ignores him, her eyes darting around the room, back to Alex's face and away again.

"Did he tell you what's wrong with me?"

_Which part?_ Alex wonders.

"Yes, I'm aware of your condition," she says carefully.

"My condition – what a ridiculous way of putting it. Not that _paranoid schizophrenic _is much better. Or _non-Hodgkins lymphoma._ It's all just words, words, words…Hamlet, Act Two scene two. His family thought _he_ was crazy. He wasn't, though."

_Okay…there's no good way to respond to that, in this context. Is she trying to bait me?_ Alex isn't sure, so she does what she always does in conversation with Bobby, when she can't figure out where he's going with something. _Keep the ball in the air._

"Maybe not," she says agreeably. "I always thought Hamlet just…paralysed himself with too much thinking. All that angst – it kept him from _doing_ anything."

Frances waves a hand.

"Oh, I know. Dark and tortured and too damn smart for his own good. He was my first fictional crush. You're one to talk though – you obviously like 'em that way too. Are you in love with my son?"

"Mom!"

Bobby sounds like he's strangling a little, and Alex swallows a startled, nervous giggle. _So this is how witnesses feel when he throws a personal question at them, completely out of the blue,_ she realizes. _Thrown off balance, defensive, annoyed? Check, check and check._

"Yes. I am," she says, holding her ground. She feels Bobby go still beside her, and casts a quick sideways glance in his direction. He's gazing at her with that soft, awed smile again; _oh,_ she thinks._ I could get used to seeing that look a lot. _

"Good," says Frances querulously. "You're the only woman who's ever put up with him for longer than a few months, did you know that?"

"Mom. Come on. Can we _please_ talk about something else?"

As amusing – and unusual – as it is to see her partner squirming like a worm on a hook, she decides to take pity on him.

"What are you reading, Mrs. Goren?" she asks, gesturing to the book Frances put down in her lap when they entered, place carefully marked with a fancy tasseled bookmark. Alex remembers seeing Bobby buy it in the gift shop at the Guggenheim, during their last art fraud case.

Frances raises a haughty eyebrow.

"Are you asking because you really want to know, or because _he_ wants you to change the subject?"

"Both," says Alex frankly.

Frances snorts. "Fine." She turns the book over so Alex can see the title: _The Stone Angel_, by Margaret Laurence.

"It's about a proud old woman who refuses to age gracefully, and makes life hell for her family. Appropriate, don't you think?"

Frances makes the question sound like a challenge, and again, Alex isn't sure how to respond. If it was her mom, she'd say _damn straight_, and mean it as a joking compliment, but this is different. Frances is hard to read, and Alex is afraid of stepping over some invisible line. She wants this visit to go well for Bobby's sake – wants it so badly that she feels hamstrung, uncertain, awkward. As she searches for a neutral response, it's Bobby's turn to rescue her.

"Alex likes Margaret Laurence too," he says blandly. Frances straightens up.

"Oh? What have you read by her?"

Alex clears her throat. "All the Manawaka novels. _The Diviners_ was my favourite." _And how the hell did you know that, Bobby? _she wonders. _I haven't thought about those books for years._

"Hm." Frances looks at her coolly. "Strong, unconventional female character struggling to achieve real independence – no surprise you'd like that one, I guess."

She sounds vaguely contemptuous, and Alex suppresses reflexive irritation. _Don't get defensive,_ she tells herself again. _It's not personal, it's just how she is. And anyway – she's right._

"Yeah. Although I think all Margaret Laurence's female characters are strong in different ways."

_Keep the ball in the air…_

"But Morag – she found a way to live her life on her own terms," Alex says slowly, feeling suddenly shy. "And…she was passionate, and flawed…it was the first time I'd ever seen that in a book…seen a woman portrayed like that, I mean – one that felt so real."

She stutters to a stop, unable to put into words how profoundly the book had affected her when she first read it in college. How she'd seen parts of herself in Morag Gunn and felt…vindicated, maybe, in some battle that she hadn't even been fully aware that she was fighting. As though a puzzle piece that had been missing from her awareness of herself had fallen into place with an audible click. _Tough_ and _proud_ didn't have to mean _cold_, or _incapable of tenderness_. She wasn't the only woman in the world who wanted to have it both ways…to be more than one thing.

_Huh. I'd forgotten how much it meant to me to see that, even if it was just in a book. Better not say "just" a book to Frances, though…_

With an effort, Alex pulls her focus back to the conversation – but Frances isn't looking at her anyway. She's gazing out the window, her hand compulsively smoothing over the cover of her book. Alex wonders if she has lost interest, moved on in her head on to another topic or three.

"She… loved deeply," says Bobby unexpectedly. "Morag, I mean. But she didn't want to be defined solely by her relationships with others – as a daughter or a wife or a mother. She was her own person. Strong." He glances sideways at Alex, smiling slightly. "I liked her too."

"Right," she says bemusedly. _Wow. Trust him to get it – really get it. _"I didn't know you'd read _The Diviners_."

"My mother made me," he says with a sudden grin in Frances' direction. "I was sixteen."

"Damn right I did," his mother says, waving her book at him peremptorily. "You were in your Dickens phase – you needed an antidote to all that sentimental Victorian melodrama."

"Hey, I was reading Austen and Bronte and Mary Shelley too, back then," Bobby protests. "I had this whole thing with the 19th century in my junior year of high school," he explains to Alex.

"Ah," she says, lips twitching.

"A thing? It was more than a _thing_," Frances says tartly. "I remember a whole month when all you talked about was factories and workhouses and the evils of industrialization."

"I learned a lot about why the world is the way it is today by reading about the 19th century, Mom," says Bobby mildly. "And anyway, you started it – you gave me that book of poems by Blake for Christmas."

Frances rolls her eyes, and Alex relaxes. She's far from fluent in the Goren family dialect, but she knows a comfortable, well-worn argument when she sees one – the kind where you tease and snark and underneath it all you're really saying _I've known you forever and I love you, no matter what_. It figures that for Bobby and his mother, that safe zone would be books.

She watches them talk, and it's not so much that she's seeing a new side of her partner, but rather that all at once, things she's sort of vaguely known about him for years are snapping into sharper focus.

_No wonder he doesn't think in straight lines. And of course he'd end up insanely good at interpreting even the smallest shifts in affect. He's been reading her all his life, and she doesn't have much affect, at least compared to so-called normal folks._

What Frances Goren clearly does have is ferocious intelligence and a passionate, indiscriminate hunger for knowledge, even now. _Something else she has passed on to her son.__He has an outlet for all that energy, though – she hasn't been so lucky. _Alex flashes abruptly back to something Bobby said once, at the end of a case: _That's what happens when people aren't allowed to do what they're good at. It makes them crazy._ At the time she'd assumed he was referring to himself…now, she thinks he probably was speaking from personal experience – but not only his own.

_I wonder what would have happened to her if she had been diagnosed and treated earlier in life. I wonder if things would have been different. _

"You're pitying me, I can tell," says Frances suddenly, cutting herself off in the middle of a sentence. "I know the look. I told you she'd pity me, Bobby, you know how I hate that."

"Mom," Bobby starts. His voice is gentle, but Alex can feel him tense up beside her. _Uh oh._

"I'm sorry if I gave that impression," she puts in firmly. "I didn't mean to. I can't stand people pitying me, either."

"What would they do that for? _You're_ not dying of cancer all alone in the nuthouse, with doctors poking and prodding at you all the time…"

_Gee, I thought you didn't want people to pity you,_ Alex wants to say, but doesn't dare. Frances reaches out to pluck at her son's sleeve.

"Bobby, I want you to talk to that McClintock woman – I think she's up to something, and I want to know what it is. She took my chart away yesterday and didn't bring it back for half an hour…and I saw her talking to the nurses this morning at breakfast, and they kept _looking_ at me…"

"Dr. McClintock talks to the nurses every morning, Mom," says Bobby patiently. "She gets an update on all the patients on your floor, including you – it's her job. You know that."

Frances brings her hand down with a sharp smack on the book resting in her lap.

"Don't you patronize me, Robert Goren," she snaps, suddenly venomous. "I'm old and crazy but I am not stupid, you hear?"

"I know, Mom – that's not -

"Coming in here all high and mighty and talking down to me," Frances mutters, to no one in particular. "Trying to impress his girlfriend, probably."

Bobby passes a hand over his face, and Alex aches for him. It's clear that this abrupt, unpredictable breakdown of his connection to his mother is the norm, and that he expects it – but it still hurts him like hell, every time.

"Mom. I didn't mean it that way."

He leans forward, elbows on his knees, trying to catch his mother's eyes. Frances lifts her chin and stares past him out the window, unrelenting, and Alex wants to shake her. _Enough with the melodrama, already. You love him, I know you do. He doesn't need much – just reach out to him, for God's sake. _

Bobby waits a few seconds, and then sighs. "Okay, Mom. You're tired - we'll go. I'll talk to Dr. McClintock before I leave, all right?"

Frances is stiff and silent as he leans down to kiss her goodbye.

"I'll see you tomorrow," he says.

"Suit yourself."

The words come out hard and uncompromising, but Alex – all too familiar with the use of anger to mask fear and confusion – hears the tremble in Frances' voice and swallows hard, her irritation abruptly subsumed in a wave of painful sympathy.

She struggles with it as she waits while Bobby talks to Dr. McClintock, knowing that pity for him or his mother is the absolute last thing he needs from her right now. But God, she wants desperately to do _something_ to ease his burden, to show him that she understands a little better now, and that she's not going anywhere.

"Thank you for letting me come with you," she says tentatively, once they're in her car and driving back to town. He shrugs jerkily, staring out the passenger window and refusing to meet her eyes. _Okay, that was the wrong tack. Crap. What's the right one?_ After a few miles of heavy silence, she tries again.

"I don't have any grounds for comparison, but…that went all right…didn't it?"

A long pause. Then,

"Yeah. It could have gone a lot worse, believe me."

He sounds tense and irritated, though, not relieved like she hoped he would be, and she has no idea what to say, or whether she should even push him to talk about it further right now.

Back in their room at the motel, she ends up sitting on the bed, pretending to flip through a magazine and watching him shuffle restlessly through his books and files, unable to focus on anything.

"What do you usually do, after you visit your mom?" she finally asks. "To…decompress, I mean."

"I – well, I go running, sometimes…"

"You could do that now, if you want. I don't mind."

Sitting in the chair by the window, he's backlit by the late afternoon sun so she can't read his expression. To her surprise, he pushes himself away from the table and comes to join her on the bed.

"I can think of other ways to unwind…" he says, curling a hand around her neck and pulling her close. She kisses him back eagerly, but she can feel the tension in his shoulders and back and knows he won't be able to settle down that easily, as much as he might want to. Sure enough, he pulls away after a few seconds and rolls over onto his back.

"Sorry. I just – I'm not…" he mutters, sounding frustrated and tired and sad.

"Don't apologize." She props herself up on one elbow beside him and pushes gently at his shoulder. "Roll over." He gives her a questioning look but obeys, turning onto his stomach and resting his head on his crossed forearms.

Kneeling over him, she wishes – not for the first time – that she was more skilled at the whole back rub thing. _Should have taken that massage therapy workshop they were offering at the gym last summer._ But Bobby lets out a long breath at her touch, and maybe, she thinks, maybe it doesn't matter so much that she's not hitting the right pressure points or whatever they're called.

After a long silence, he finally speaks, voice muffled.

"So…what did you think?"

She doesn't have to ask _about what. _She keeps her hands moving, slow and warm and firm across his shoulders, stroking down his spine and back up again.

"I liked her," she says at last. "Well, except when she started ragging on you. I think I'm going to find that hard to take. But the rest of the time…she's – difficult, like you said, but…she's strong, and smart, and she doesn't take any crap. I like that."

Bobby nods into the pillow, and she thinks he might be smiling just a little. "You and she are a lot alike that way."

Another pause, and she feels like he's waiting, still. So she takes a deep breath and continues carefully.

"She wasn't…what I expected, in some ways. She was more…with it… than I thought she would be…"

"Today was a good day," Bobby says flatly. "Sometimes it's hard to carry on a conversation at all. She gets…scared, angry – she thinks I'm conspiring with her doctors, that we're not telling her everything about her treatments…that I'm letting them experiment on her, or something."

_God._ There isn't anything she can say that won't sound pitying, so she just concentrates on touching him, wishing fiercely that she could transfer strength and sympathy straight through the skin, from her bloodstream to his by some kind of osmosis.

He sighs. "The good days…I'm grateful for them. Obviously. But…in a way they just make everything harder…they remind me that I can't just…write her off. Not while she's still…in there somewhere. Sometimes."

His voice wavers suddenly on the last word, and he turns his face into the pillow.

"Damn it," he says angrily, despairingly.

She feels his whole body seize up as he struggles not to give in to the tears she can hear in his voice. Her need to comfort him is visceral, urgent; it knots her stomach and makes her hands shake. Not letting herself even consider the possibility that he might push her away, she drapes herself down over him like a blanket, pressing her body to his from hips to shoulders. _As close as I can get and it's not close enough_, she thinks distantly. _If I could I'd sink right into him, take some of this hurt into myself… _She shuts her eyes and presses her lips to the place where his neck meets his shoulder, and waits as he takes one shuddering, painful breath after another.

At last he moves, slowly, shifting her body off his so that she ends up on her side, facing him.

"Okay?" she says softly, flattening her hand gently against his cheek.

"Yes," he says. "And – no. You know."

"Yeah. I know."

His eyes flutter shut, and she thinks he's going to draw away, finally – but instead, he curls in towards her until his forehead touches her collarbone, reaching out with a hand on her hip to pull her clumsily closer. She's never seen such a gesture of complete, blind trust from him before, and it rocks her to her soul.

"Wait," she says, struggling to speak through a wave of love and pity and relief. "Let me…Come here."

She shifts onto her back, guiding his head to rest heavy and warm just below her breasts. More comfortable to lie that way, and she can get both arms around him.

"I'm tired," he mumbles.

"I know," she says steadily. "Why don't you try to sleep a little? We're on holiday, after all…afternoon naps come with the package."

"Like you'd know," Bobby says sleepily. "This is the first real vacation you've taken since we met. Mat leave doesn't count."

"Quiet, you." But she's smiling.

"'m I too heavy?"

"No. You're fine."

A minute later, he's asleep in her arms. She lies quietly, watching the late afternoon sunlight slant across the bed. It's the first time, she thinks, that she's felt at peace – _really _at peace, whole and safe, on solid ground – in months. _Maybe even years._

She marvels at the realization, and at the fact that she _isn't_ terrified by the strength of her feelings, by the depth of her need and his.

_Well, okay, I am scared, still – but not as much as I was even this morning. How the hell did that happen?_

She feels like she should figure it out, whatever it is, if only to ensure that it keeps _on _happening – but it's warm and still in the room, and Bobby is a comforting weight on her chest, his breathing soft and regular.

_Later,_ she thinks, her eyelids drooping. _Rest first. We've earned this, for now._

* * *

_Yes, you who must leave everything that you cannot control  
It begins with your family, but soon it comes around to your soul  
Well I've been where you're hanging, I think I can see how you're pinned:  
When you're not feeling holy, your loneliness says that you've sinned._

_Well they lay down beside me, I made my confession to them  
They touched both my eyes and I touched the dew on their hem  
If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn  
They will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem.  
_**-- Leonard Cohen, "Sisters of Mercy"**

* * *

**Author's Note the second: I imagine my Canadian-ness is showing, if it wasn't already obvious from all the song lyrics. I don't know how familiar folks in the US would be with Margaret Laurence, so it may be a bit of a stretch to have Alex reading her in college...but maybe she took an English lit course on "women in contemporary North American fiction" or something. ;) I wholeheartedly recommend Laurence's books though - they were pivotal in my life as a reader _and_ a writer.  
**


	10. Chapter 9

**TILL I AM MYSELF AGAIN, Chapter 9/?**

_Please see Prologue for disclaimers._

* * *

_She's back in the basement, hanging by her wrists, choking on her gag, tasting tears and blood and bitter helplessness…and the worst thing about it is that it feels so familiar. Even in the dream, she knows it's happened before, and that time she was lucky enough and strong enough to survive – but now, incomprehensibly, she's back in that horrible place and nobody gets two such narrow escapes…which means, oh god, she'll never get out, she'll die like the woman on the other side of the curtain, sobbing and begging for the pain to end…_

_No. NO._

Clutching at hot, stubborn rage like a lifeline, she tears herself free of the nightmare and sits up with a jerk, sweating and gasping for breath.

"Alex?" Beside her, Bobby pushes himself up on his elbows. "What's wrong - are you…"

_Oh God. Did I scream or something?_

Even as he reaches out to her, she recoils uncontrollably, fighting residual terror and the embarrassment that floods through her in its wake. She tries to swing her legs around and get out of bed, but her feet tangle in the sheets and she trips, landing hard on her knees.

"Shit!"

She pounds her clenched fist once into the floor, unable to keep hot tears of pain and mortification from starting in her eyes.

"Shit, shit, _shit._"

Her heart is still thudding in her ears, sparks dancing in front of her eyelids like they did when she was blindfolded…_no, shut up,_ she tells her brain angrily. She pulls her knees up to her chest and holds on tight, so tight that her arms ache – and that's another reminder she really doesn't need right now. _Damn it, stop. I am not doing this anymore. I'm not._

Distantly she registers Bobby turning on a light and sliding down to join her on the floor. He puts a careful hand on her back. Again, before she can stop herself, she pulls away from his touch.

"Don't. I'm – just give me a minute. I'll be fine."

Which is a lie, and they both know it, even before her voice cracks humiliatingly on the word _fine. _Bobby stiffens and withdraws his hand.

"Alex," he starts, sounding frustrated. "Let me…"

But she can't move. All she can hear is her own breathing, rapid and harsh. She presses her forehead to her knees. _Just when things were finally getting better, it fucking figures… say something to him, damn it. _But she doesn't have the first clue where to begin, and a hard, miserable silence stretches between them. Finally Bobby speaks, and she can hear the effort he's making to keep his voice level.

"So…everything you've been saying about how we need to be more open…that only applies when it's me spilling my guts to you?"

_He's right_, she thinks wretchedly_. God, I'm the worst kind of hypocrite right now…what the hell is my problem?_ Bobby sighs.

"I know you're usually the strong one…and really, why would you expect me to be able to…you know exactly how fucked up I am, after all…"

The bitter, helpless note in his voice makes her throat ache. Then she feels him move restlessly beside her, and for a second she hopes he's going to try again to comfort her – _I won't pull away this time,_ she promises herself and him, inwardly – but air rushes between them. He's standing up, going back to bed. Giving her the space he thinks she wants.

_I can't stand this. _The hurt in his voice, the silence between them, the sheer loneliness of it…She takes a deep, gasping breath to say _wait, stop_ – but fear and guilt are a dull weight on her chest, and she can't get words out.

_I might as well still be gagged and blindfolded._

The thought emerges out of the turmoil in her mind with unexpected clarity, and everything in her revolts against it. _No. Not anymore. _So she does the only thing that's left: she conjures up the nightmare again, lets the terror and pain and humiliation surge up inside her unchecked. _Fuck you,_ she tells the memory of Jo Gage. _Take your best shot...here I am, wide open…_

A deep, racking sob claws its way out of her throat, and then another. She feels Bobby's hand on her wrist, gently loosening her death grip around her knees. Then his other arm comes around her, and in the end, it's such a short way to fall, to let herself lean into him.

She can count on the fingers of one hand the times in her adult life that she's cried this hard and this long. The night after the first time she'd shot and killed a perp, during her stint in Vice – then it was Rory, holding her. Again not even six months later, when Rory was killed. Maybe twice in the years that followed. Once a few days after Owen was born. But not since then – not when they broke her out of the basement, not after any of the other nightmares since, and not in therapy. She's come close, so close, many times recently – but she hasn't just… let go like this, not entirely. She can't really remember, now, why it seemed so important not to.

Bobby doesn't say a word; he just holds on as she comes apart in his arms. _Holding the pieces together,_ she thinks incoherently. Still crying, she straightens up far enough to look him in the eye.

"I need you," she says brokenly, urgently. "_Just as much_ as you need me. God, Bobby, it kills me that you think – that you don't know…"

She feels her face crumple again, and the rest of the sentence gets lost in another gulping sob, muffled in his shoulder. Bobby tightens his arms around her and presses his mouth hard to the top of her head.

"Shh. Come on, don't…you're supposed to be crying about all the crap that you've been through – not about me and my crap."

That makes her chuckle through her tears, a little hysterically.

"If I'm going to c-cry, I'll cry about whatever the hell I want," she mutters. "Besides… it's all mixed up together anyway."

She pushes her face into his neck, rubbing her tears away on the rough stubble there, feeling the pulse in his throat beat against her cheek as her shudders start to subside.

After a minute Bobby shifts a little, and abruptly she realizes that they're still sitting on the floor.

"Oh – sorry," she stumbles, hot with embarrassment all over again. "We can – let's go back to bed."

"It's okay," Bobby says as she pulls away and stands up, slowly, stiffly. She can't look at him, but as they get back into bed she can feel him watching her, radiating worry and sympathy. When she flops onto her back, he turns on his side towards her and reaches out to rest his hand on her stomach.

"How about…we start over?" he offers tentatively.

"What, with me screaming and falling out of bed?"

He snorts. "You didn't scream before. And no, I meant – maybe you could tell me about your nightmare. Please?"

She swipes a hand over her face and pinches the bridge of her nose, staring blindly up at the ceiling.

"It was the same as always," she mutters at last. Her throat is sore, her nose still clogged from crying. "Back in the basement, t-tied up, trying to escape…nothing new, just…worse than I've had in weeks. I thought I was getting _past_ this. Getting over it."

Frustration surges through her again.

"It feels – like a step back." _Like a failure. _She twists the sheet between her fingers.

"That's how I feel in the dream too. Like I'm caught in the rewind loop from hell. I always – know I've been through it before, and I just can't understand how it can all be happening again. How I can possibly have let myself get into that situation again."

Bobby takes a breath, but she cuts him off.

"And don't say that it wasn't my fault the first time. I know it wasn't. That's just how it feels."

When he doesn't reply immediately, she turns her head to look at him, and finds him gazing at her, lips pressed tight together.

"What?"

"I'm – well, that's pretty much exactly how _I_ feel. About all of it," he says carefully.

She stares at him, remembering all the times lately that she's snapped at him to stop blaming himself, stop feeling so guilty. After a long second, she sighs, her eyes falling shut.

"Touché."

The bed moves as he shifts towards her, and then she feels his fingers threading gently through her hair.

"I wasn't – trying to score a point. I just wanted you to understand…"

"I know."

Inwardly she steps down hard on the beginnings of resentment, realizing how unusual it is for him to…push back at her about anything to do with their relationship. _When it comes to us, he almost always lets me lead, _she thinks. _Maybe I've gotten a little too used to that, for all I talk so much about equal footing._ She takes a deep breath and, eyes still closed, moves her head closer to his hand.

"You can have all the points you want, though, if you keep doing that…"

He chuckles, a surprised, pleased sound that goes straight to her heart, and suddenly it's easy to roll the rest of the way into his arms. She fits herself against his side and presses her cheek to his chest.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I think…I think part of why I've been getting so mad at you when you blame yourself for everything…is that I'm doing the same thing – blaming myself, I mean – and I hate it. I hate that what happened has that power over me, that it makes me second-guess myself."

He lets out a long breath, as though he's waited a long time to hear this from her. She swallows hard and continues determinedly.

"And…you were right, before. About me being the strong one…I'm – used to that role. And…I guess I do like it, maybe more than I should… But I don't – I _never_ want you to think that it's a – a one-way street between us."

She sighs. "I suck at coming out and asking for help…and Dr. Nahdi agrees with you, by the way, that I need to work on…"

"Hey," Bobby cuts in, his arm tightening around her. "Wait. Just so we're clear – I love how strong you are. I would never want you to change that."

She's frozen, rendered speechless by the quiet certainty in his voice and the fact that he said _love._

"It's just…nice to be needed sometimes, too. You know?"

She squeezes her eyes shut, then opens them again and pushes herself up on one elbow to look at him.

"Yeah. And you are…you are. In more ways than I can count."

"Okay," Bobby says softly. "Thank you. It…helps to hear you say so."

She lets her head fall to his chest, and he goes back to stroking her hair, fingers moving slowly over her scalp, tracing the curve of her ear and the line of her neck. She shivers and burrows closer, wrapping an arm around his waist.

"Listen," he says after a minute. "I know you know this, but – recovery isn't a straight line. Tonight, your dream…it's not a sign of regression. It's normal."

She sighs. "I guess. I just want to be done with the whole stupid process."

"Mmm. Is that why you went back to work so soon?"

His neutral tone makes her roll her eyes. "_Too_ soon, right? You can say it. I know that's what you thought…you and Ross and everyone."

Her accusation loses whatever small impact it might have had when it's overtaken by a huge yawn.

"Maybe you were right, though," she admits sleepily. "Maybe I did rush back too quickly…for both of us."

"Both…what d'you mean?"

"Ray Wiszneski." She feels him tense beneath her, and spreads her hand on his stomach.

_Do I really want to get into this now? _ she wonders. But she's feeling warm and safe and drowsy, and compared to talking about her nightmares, the memory of Wiszneski seems…not easy, never that – but…less of a minefield than it might have been a few weeks ago.

"I thought I was fine to work – but I wasn't recovered enough to have a gun pointed at me. Or you. And you definitely weren't ready to see me in danger."

"I'm never going to be ready for that."

"You know what I mean."

He sighs. "Yeah. It wasn't – my finest moment as a hostage negotiator. Afterwards – I kept thinking... if – if I hadn't been so – so afraid, and then so relieved when he surrendered…I might have remembered his history. Realized what he was planning."

She turns her face into his chest, presses a kiss through his shirt. "Proof that I heard you earlier – I won't tell you to stop thinking that way."

She's rewarded with a small, amused snort. "I appreciate it."

There's a small silence. She traces small, random patterns on his stomach until he covers her hand with his, thumb rubbing over her knuckles. After a minute he reaches over to turn off the bedside lamp, and then pulls her close again. She wraps herself around him, feeling exhaustion falling over her like a soft, heavy blanket.

"I'm worried about going back to work," she hears herself say, on the edge of sleep. "The next time things go sideways…afraid I'll freeze."

_I can't believe I just said that,_ she thinks with a strange detached sort of wonder.

"Me too," says Bobby equally softly. "For myself, I mean, not you. I know you'll be fine."

_How do you know?_ But she guesses she'll have to trust that, in this, he knows her strength better than she does. And vice versa.

"Anyway, we can't _not_ go back," he continues slowly. "So… we'll just have to get through it. Do the best we can."

"As long as it's _we_…us…together," she mumbles. "Doing it. Working, I mean. And all the other stuff."

"That's very poetic, Alex." She can hear him smiling.

"Mmph. Whatever. You know what I mean."

_lose our grip and we fall  
trying to climb over this wall  
made of anger and guilt  
a high barrier we built  
place your foot on my back  
it may be the height you lack  
if you make it outside, would you come back  
be my guide_

**-- Lennie Gallant, "Lifeline"**

TBC in Chapter 10...**  
**


	11. Chapter 10

**TILL I AM MYSELF AGAIN, Chapter 10/10**

_Please see Prologue for disclaimers._

* * *

**Author's Note: Wow. Here we are at the end of this story, finally. It has been almost a exactly a full year since I posted the Prologue, which is longer than I've ever spent on any piece of writing. A YEAR. Yikes. Huge thanks to everyone who has read and commented...your feedback has kept me going, and I truly appreciate it. I hope the end of the tale proves satisfactory!**

* * *

The next few days are bright and warm, suffused with a lazy contentment that seems all the more precious because of how hard it's been to achieve. Of course, it's not entirely smooth sailing – for one thing, they establish pretty conclusively that one room is _not_ enough living space for the two of them – but the arguments don't…hurt as much, now. Alex is seeing less of that bitter, defeated look that twists her gut every time it crosses Bobby's face, and they're both sleeping through the night.

"I don't know whether it's being away from work and the city and everything…or just being finally ready to deal with all the crap, or what," she says to her sister on the phone on Thursday evening. "But he and I have talked more in the past week than we have in – God, months, I think."

"Good," says Jen firmly. Then a teasing note creeps into her voice. "But I hope you haven't _just_ been talking. You do know there are…other ways to reconnect, right?"

Alex rolls her eyes. "Yes. Things are fine in that department too, thank you _very_much. And that's all I'm going to say, so you can just give up right now."

"Come on… I _have_ to get my kicks vicariously," Jen protests. "I'm the mother of a toddler, for God's sake. And also the wife of a cop who got stuck with the graveyard shift for the freakin' third week in a row..."

"Really? Geez, poor Mike. Poor you."

"Yeah," Jen sighs, sounding tired. "We're ships passing in the night these days, he and I…only we pass at dinner time. Yikes – Owen, honey, give me that. Here, how about a cracker instead? Why don't we get you into your high chair…"

Jen's voice fades out for a second, and Alex winces in sympathy, picturing her sister jamming the phone between her shoulder and her ear, struggling with Owen and the straps on the chair and the box of crackers.

"Sorry." Jen comes back, a little breathless. "He's got this thing with his crayons, since last week – wants to taste all the colours. Gross, right?"

"Yeah," Alex chuckles. "Hey, look, we're coming home tomorrow night, but I don't have to go back to work until Monday. I could take Owen on the weekend – give you and Mike a chance to have some time together…"

"Oh…that sounds wonderful," says Jen wistfully. "Are you sure, though? You're supposed to be taking it easy. That was the whole point of this vacation."

"Of course I'm sure. I'll have had two weeks of taking it easy. And…let's just say I'm very much sold on the benefits of getting away with one's significant other, these days."

"I'll bet." Jen's suggestive grin is clear in her voice. "Where is he, anyway? Bobby, I mean."

"I'm waiting for him. We're supposed to be going for a walk down by the lake, but there's this second-hand bookstore…he knows the owner, and he stopped to pick up a book he ordered for his mom. And, well…you know how when you send Mike to the grocery store for milk…"

"He comes back with milk _and _bananas and ice cream and two kinds of bread? Yeah. Like it's wrong to go to the checkout with just one thing."

"Right. Well, Bobby's like that with books. We'll be on a case and he'll say he's going to the library to look something up, and I won't see him again for two hours. And then he reappears with a pile of books, and only one or two of them have anything to do with the reason he went in the first place."

"Ah. I'm guessing the same applies to bookstores."

"Yup," Alex says resignedly.

She had to admit that the shop was kind of neat. There were thousands of books, stacked two layers deep on the shelves and in dusty, tottering piles on the floor. History, geography, poetry, science fiction, romance, biology, physics, astronomy…after five minutes she'd given up trying to figure out the filing system, recognizing the sort of creative chaos that only makes sense from inside the mind that came up with it. _No wonder Bobby likes this place,_ she'd thought, smiling to herself.

She'd rounded a stack and found her partner running a finger along the spines at eye level, a pile of books he'd already pulled out balanced precariously in the crook of his other arm. She'd grinned, shaken her head and left him to it, abandoning the shop for a bench outside. The street was quiet and peaceful, and she could see the lake from where she sat, rippling blue and orange-gold in the setting sun. She'd been gazing out at the water for almost an hour, mind blissfully and luxuriously blank, before Jen's call.

"I'm about ready to go in and drag him out," she continues. "It's getting dark. The place must be closing soon. But he's having so much fun."

She looks back at the store, and sees Bobby in the window, watching her. _Huh. How long has he been standing there?_ Then she wonders how she's so sure that he's actually looking at her, since the light is behind him and his face is in shadow. But she knows; it's as if she can feel the warmth of his gaze on her skin.

"Alex?" Jen's voice pulls her out of her trance.

"Sorry. I'm here."

"Got distracted, huh? I bet I can guess by whom…"

"Shut up," she says, laughing.

"Okay, okay." Then, serious all of a sudden, Jen says tentatively, "You sound good, Al. Rested. Happy. I'm – I'm so glad."

"Yeah," Alex says, throat suddenly a little tight. "Me too."

In the small silence that follows, the door of the bookshop opens with a jingle and Bobby emerges.

"Listen, I should go, but I'll talk to you soon, okay? And I meant it, about taking Owen when I get back. Tell Mike."

"I will – and thanks. Say hi to Bobby."

Alex flips the phone shut and looks up at her partner.

"I was about to send in a search party."

"Yeah. Sorry." He comes round and joins her on the bench. "It's just – he has a really great selection, and every time I go there's new stuff…"

He catches her amused glance. "What?"

"Nothing." Impulsively she leans forward and kisses him, soft and lingering. At first she can feel his surprise – hell, she's a little surprised at herself for not caring that they're sitting in plain sight on the street – but in the next breath he relaxes into the caress. After a long moment, she lets him up for air and he blinks at her with a dazed half-smile.

"You're very…affectionate, these days."

She looks away, glad of the hair that falls in front of her face. He's right; it's unusual for her to be the more effusive one, especially in public – but she has privately decided it's past time she got over that particular inhibition.

"I'm just…glad to be here with you."

His arm tightens around her. "Likewise."

"And…" she continues slowly, unsure how he'll take the other thing she wants to say. "I've noticed that your mom…she – well, she's not very demonstrative."

She feels him tense up beside her. "It's just how she is…schizophrenics often have trouble with body language…showing emotion…"

"Yeah, I know. I'm not judging her…but…" She lifts a hand to his cheek. "I think you've got a lot of affection owed to you."

"And you've appointed yourself to redress the imbalance?"

There's a barely-perceptible edge to his voice. She can't quite read the look in his eyes, but she's pretty sure she knows what he's thinking.

"Yes." She slides her hand around to the back of his neck and fixes him with a mock glare. "And not out of pity, Goren, so don't even start. I have a selfish ulterior motive."

He clears his throat. "Oh?"

"What, I have to spell it out for you?" He just looks at her stubbornly. "Fine," she says tartly. _You asked for it, buddy._

She tilts her head and, very deliberately, presses an open-mouthed kiss to the underside of his jaw.

"I like to touch you," she says quietly, her lips brushing against his throat. He shivers, and she spreads her other hand on his thigh, slowly tracing the in-seam of his jeans from his knee towards his groin, trying not to feel silly. This kind of overt seductiveness has never been her style – but there's no way she's backing off now. She has a point to prove, damn it. She tries to focus on the catch in his breathing, the tensing of his leg muscles beneath her fingers, the softness of the warm skin just behind his ear when she touches her lips there.

_He'll stop me before I actually commit public indecency_, she tells herself_. Probably. _

She suppresses a slightly hysterical giggle and closes her teeth on his earlobe in a gentle, wet tug. Bobby jerks his knees shut and grabs her hand.

"Jesus, Alex!" he gasps, half laughing, half pleading. She grins at him triumphantly.

"Come on, let's walk."

"Not sure I can," Bobby mutters. But he lets her pull him up, and they find their way down to the lakeside path. It's dark and quiet, lined with rustling trees separating them from the town on one side, and the moonlit lake on the other. She keeps hold of his hand, tracing small circles with her thumb on the inside of his wrist, feeling the pulse beating steadily there. _I__f only we could bottle this peace and take it home with us_, she thinks wistfully. She knows she's as ready as she'll ever be to go back to work and life and everything else, and she thinks her partner is too - but she also knows how hard it'll be hard to maintain this feeling of strength and safety and..._togetherness_, once they're in the thick of it again.

_I won't forget_._I won't let him forget either._ She tightens her grip on his hand, a silent promise. He looks down at her and smiles questioningly, but before she can start to explain he stops walking, distracted by something over her shoulder.

"Hey - that's the motel, through there." Sure enough, when she turns she can see the lights, and a narrow footpath coming down the hill through the trees, and continuing towards the lake on the other side.

"Do you want to go in?" he asks. She contemplates him for a second and then shakes her head.

"Nah. Let's go make out on the beach instead."

His eyebrows fly up. She chuckles and turns away, knowing that he'll follow her down the path towards the lake.

"I like this new side of you," he mutters behind her as they pick their way through the trees.

_So do I_, she thinks with profound satisfaction.

When they come out of the trees onto the sandy shore, the little beach is silent and still and awash with moonlight.

"Wow," says Alex, caught by the beauty of it. Beside her, Bobby lets out a long breath.

"Yeah." He tugs gently on her hand, pulling her down beside him. She comes willingly into his arms, and they sit there for a long moment, close and quiet, watching the moonlight glittering on the water.

"I'm kind of sorry we have to leave tomorrow," he says suddenly into the silence. Then he chuckles a little, ruefully. "And that's got to be a first…usually I'm glad to leave. And then I feel guilty for being glad."

She lifts her head from his shoulder and smiles at him. "Lot of firsts, on this trip."

"Yeah." He smiles back, slow and contented and sure – and just like that, like the last drop that makes the cup overflow, from one breath to the next she's lost. _And found_. Free and clear and simple.

"Here's another," she says softly. "I love you."

The words come out a little wobbly, but not from fear or even nerves, she realizes with wonder. All she feels is a deep, slow-rising happiness so strong and all-encompassing that she's trembling a little with the effort of containing it. She watches Bobby's face, cataloguing it with aching tenderness. _Remember this. Remember._

He's staring at her with bright, starving eyes, and she's not even sure he's breathing. Then his lips quirk uncontrollably and she feels a huge grin stretching across her face in response.

"Say it again," he says, his arms tightening around her.

"What, didn't you hear me the first time?" she teases.

"Yeah, but – just – "

"I love you." She isn't sure whether the hitch in her voice is laughter or tears or both. "I am crazy, head-over-heels in love with you, Robert Goren."

He pulls her hard against him, so close that she can feel his heart thudding against her breasts.

"God, me too. With you, I mean."

"Say it again," she says, into the crook of his neck.

"I love you. I love you."

He pulls back to look at her, framing her face with trembling fingers, and his expression sears her heart – naked and open and blazing with feeling, all the walls crumbling.

"Alex," he mutters. "I've never…I don't…"

"Don't you dare say you don't deserve this. Don't you _dare._" Her voice sounds strange to her ears, broken and angry. _Goddamn martyr complex, _she thinks incoherently, _I swear I'll kick his ass if he starts that again…_

Bobby swallows hard. "Okay." He takes a ragged breath. "But…this…it feels like tempting fate. In m-more ways than one."

"I know. God, don't I know it..." She presses her forehead to his. "But…could you stop? Take it back?"

"No – no. " He kisses her hungrily. "No."

She holds his head to hers and kisses him back, again and again until the wave of desperate emotion slows and softens into warm, liquid longing.

"Let's go back to the room," he says, lips tracing the line of her jaw, when they have to stop to breathe.

"What's wrong with here?" She's only half kidding, shivering with sudden urgency as his tongue curves around her ear and his palm covers her breast through her shirt.

"Sand," he mumbles. "In really uncomfortable places."

She laughs breathlessly into his shoulder. "Oh, well, if you put it _that_ way…"

Reluctantly she disentangles and stands up, dizzy and vibrating all over with need. She watches Bobby stand up stiffly in his turn, and chuckles. He narrows his eyes at her, but his mock-annoyed look collapses almost immediately into a helpless grin, tinged with awe.

"What?" She pushes her hair behind her ears, resisting the impulse to squirm a little under his gaze. He lets out a long breath, gesturing towards her.

"I just…I don't think I've ever been happier than I am right now."

She inhales shakily. "Oh, Bobby…"

"I know it's different for you…this isn't the first time…" He rubs the back of his neck, abruptly awkward again. "I don't expect you to feel…I just wanted you to know…"

"Hey." She cuts him off gently, stepping close. "It's…God, it's weird to be thinking of Rory right now. But I can't help it, I guess."

"That's okay," says Bobby softly. She gazes up at him, shaking her head.

"You're amazing, you know that?" He shrugs and looks away in embarrassed, automatic denial, and she reaches for him. "No, listen, this is important."

She takes a deep breath. "I've been thinking about Rory because – because I'm happy with you. I'm happier than I've been since he died. Happier than I ever thought I'd be again."

She stops abruptly. _I'd given up,_ she realizes. _I'd really given up on ever feeling this way again. _She trembles, overwhelmed with grief and gratitude.

"Alex…" Bobby's voice is rough. "That's – God, I want you to be happy. I want to – to be happy with you. But I'm terrified that I won't…that I can't…with everything, my mother, and…"

She brushes away tears and laces her fingers through his.

"Know what I think? I think we'll be okay. Better than okay. This – you and me – we've fucking _earned _it. Every step of the way for the past seven years."

He snorts darkly. "Blood, sweat and tears…just what everyone wants in a relationship, right?"

"It's what_ I_want. This relationship is what I want," she says quietly. "I love you, remember?" She repeats it deliberately, just because she can, now. And because she really likes the way he can't seem to help smiling when she says it.

"I love you too."

And, okay, she really,_really_ likes hearing him say it back.

They stand there grinning like fools for a few more seconds, and then she lifts her eyebrows at him and breaks out her best long-suffering tone.

"Now can we _please_go to bed?"

He laughs out loud, a sharp bark of surprise and delight, and the air between them fizzles and sparkles with sudden, giddy joy.

"Hell, yes," he says with an emphasis that makes her shiver. "Lead the way."

_Love took a long time, it followed me here  
And it landed on light feet, and it whispered in my ear  
Love spoke of my past as a valuable test  
And smiled, and said she who loves last loves best  
'Cause you know life is hard, but now you also know your mind,  
So now you're going out to love, but on your own side this time  
_

_So I'll keep you wondering what time I'm arriving  
And you'll drive me crazy with your backseat driving  
And I'll talk in my sleep and you'll steal all the covers  
We'll argue it out and we'll call ourselves lovers  
And I'll stay in my body and you'll stay in your own  
'Cause we know that we're born and we're dying alone.  
So we turn out the light while the sirens are screaming  
And we kiss for the waking, and then join the dreaming.  
In love, but not at peace  
In love, but not at peace_.

**-- Dar Williams, "****In Love But Not At Peace"**

**THE END**

**Thank you all so much for reading... -- Jeannie **_**  
**_


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